The Oracle Java license change has become a hot topic amongst information technology professionals. As of January 2019, administrators who install Java 8 U 202 and later are only able to get security updates when they purchase support for each desktop. Furthermore, Java 11 and above is only available from Oracle under a commercial support agreement. The Java Oracle license change has raised concerns because support costs are expected to rise.

When it comes to deploying scripts for Intune admins, there is only one script method available: Intune PowerShell Scripts. PowerShell can be a powerful format, but you likely have existing scripts you want to leverage with your domain-joined and non-domain-joined machines. Intune script capabilities don’t enable you to deploy VBscripts, batch scripts, or JavaScript scripts. The screenshot below shows the full complement of options available for script deployment using MEM (Intune).

AppLocker is an application control feature found in enterprise editions of Windows. The tool enables you to manage which applications and files users can run. Windows AppLocker aims to limit software access and related data from specific users and business groups. The results of which is heightened security reduced administrative overhead and fewer helpdesk calls.

The local Windows administrator account is a coveted target for hackers and malware. There are potentially a lot of bad things that can happen if a hacker can crack the local admin account of one of your servers. Dreadful things usually occur when someone downloads a malicious malware strain using the administrator account as well. The magnitude of these problems is amplified even more if you use the default administrator account for every similar machine uses the same password.

In recent years, with the rapid rise of cloud computing, the virtualization of applications and infrastructure has been replacing traditional in-house deployments of applications and services. It’s currently more cost-effective for organizations to rent hardware resources from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google and spin up virtual instances of servers with the exact hardware profiles required to run their services.

Systems are constantly changing. Change and configuration management best practices allow organizations to keep track of configuration changes in a way that allows for rapid feature updates without any service outages, but many organizations struggle to find the ideal formula to make this process successful. So, what are the best practices in change and configuration management?

In order to maintain the integrity of a Windows file system, File Integrity Monitoring is applied to ensure no unauthorized changes are made to files, folders or configuration settings.

Within the FIM technology market, there are choices to be made. Agent-based or agentless is the most common choice, but even then there are both SIEM and ‘pure-play’ FIM, solutions to choose between.