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| Note: There is a newer version
MBSA 2.1 available. Go
here
for current information. |
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Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
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| Microsoft recently
released v1.2 of the Baseline Security Analyzer (BSA), a
free tool designed to check for what Microsoft calls -common
security misconfigurations- in Windows XP and a few other
operating systems. The BSA is a free download that may be
obtained
here.
I'm not really sure why, but for some reason the BSA really
doesn't seem very popular among many users. In fact, the
majority of times I've mentioned BSA I've received a blank
stare or users have no idea it even exists, much less what
it does. Once BSA has been downloaded, installed, and run
the primary interface shown in Fig. 01 appears. |
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Fig. 01
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This article is not intended to be an in depth guide to
BSA but rather to make you aware it exists in the hope
you'll do some experimenting. In short, BSA scans a
local or remote computer system and produces a security
report. The help section that is provided with BSA is
extensive and deserves a thorough reading to get the
most out of the product, but even if you don't
want it to study it in depth the BSA can still provide
some solid information and possibly find some problems
you didn't know existed on your machine.
Just as a quick example, I loaded up BSA and then selected
the [Scan A Computer] option from the main screen to produce
the report shown in Fig. 02 below. Obviously I've altered
the Computer Name, IP Address, and the Security Report Name
that are automatically inserted when the report is
generated. The report contains several distinct sections.
Whether all of them will be utilized depends on the system
being analyzed, but look it over as it provides a good
general idea of what BSA covers and may help you decide if
you want to download it for your own system. |
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| Fig. 02 |
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| If you decide to
dig into BSA I suggest reading the
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
V1.2 page and
following the various links for additional information,
especially the FAQ link which covers how to interpret the
BSA icons and scores that are generated. I've installed the
BSA on quite a few machines and it's amazing how many of
them fail the Local Account Password Test in the Windows
Scan Results section. Even if you gain nothing else from the
BSA report, that one item alone could be worth the
installation. Give it a shot and see how your system fares. |
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