In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, organizations operating in regulated industries face the challenge of meeting stringent regulatory requirements to ensure the security and privacy of their systems and data. NIST compliance, guided by key NIST publications, plays a vital role in helping organizations navigate these complex regulatory landscapes effectively.

NTLM V1 and V2, and Kerberos are three authentication protocols. These protocols aim to enhance security, especially in the Active Directory environment. Authentication protocols are popular attack vectors. They can help attackers gain access and elevate privileges. It is important to choose the relevant and most secured protocol for your environments and configure it properly. The most veteran protocol among the three is NTLMv1.

Do not allow COM port redirection in RDP is the name of a security setting stated in Windows servers CIS benchmarks/STIGs. A COM port is an I/O interface that enables the connection of a serial device to a computer. In some cases COM ports are called “serial ports”. Most computers are not equipped with COM ports anymore but there are many serial port devices still used in computer networks.

In 2014 and with extensive community involvement NIST Cybersecurity Framework was created for private sector organizations in the United States. It is also aligned with other NIST standards and guidelines, such as NIST 800-53 and FedRAMP. NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF or Framework) is intended to be a living document that is refined and improved over time and was updated in 2018 and called CSF 1.1. We will be discussing NIST CSF 2.0.