SANS SEC505 – Securing Windows and Powershell Automation (2020)

WINDOWS SECURITY AUTOMATION MEANS POWERSHELL
In this course (SEC505) you will learn how to:
Write PowerShell scripts for Windows and Active Directory security automation
Safely run PowerShell scripts on thousands of hosts over the network
Defend against PowerShell malware such as ransomware
Harden Windows Server and Windows 10 against skilled attackers

In particular, we will use PowerShell to secure Windows against many of the attacks described in the MITRE ATT&CK matrix, especially stolen administrative credentials, ransomware, hacker lateral movement inside the LAN, and insecure Windows protocols, like RDP and SMB.

You will leave this course ready to start writing your own PowerShell scripts to help secure your Windows environment. It’s easy to find Windows security checklists, but how do you automate those changes across thousands of machines? How do you safely run scripts on many remote boxes? In this course you will learn not just Windows and Active Directory security, but how to manage security using PowerShell.

DON’T JUST LEARN POWERSHELL SYNTAX, LEARN HOW TO LEVERAGE POWERSHELL AS A FORCE MULTIPLIER FOR WINDOWS SECURITY

There is another reason why PowerShell has become popular: PowerShell is just plain fun! You will be surprised at how much you can accomplish with PowerShell in a short period of time – it’s much more than just a scripting language, and you don’t have to be a coding guru to get going.

Learning PowerShell is also useful for another kind of security: job security. Employers are looking for IT people with PowerShell skills. You don’t have to know any PowerShell to attend this course, we will learn it together during the labs.

You can learn basic PowerShell syntax on YouTube for free, but this week goes far beyond syntax. In this course we will learn how to use PowerShell as a platform for managing security, as a "force multiplier" for the Blue Team, and as a rocket booster for your Windows IT career.

WE WILL WRITE A POWERSHELL RANSOMWARE SCRIPT AND DEFEND AGAINST IT

Unfortunately, PowerShell is being abused by hackers and malware authors. On the last day of the course, we will write our own ransomware script to see how to defend against scripts like it.

This is a fun course and a real eye-opener, even for Windows administrators with years of experience. Come have fun learning PowerShell and Windows security at the same time.

The course author, Jason Fossen, is a SANS Institute Fellow and has been writing and teaching for SANS since 1998. In fact, this course (SEC505) has had at least one day of PowerShell for more than ten years, and now PowerShell is the centerpiece of the course.

Topic Highlights

PowerShell scripting of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
PowerShell remote command execution
PowerShell Core with OpenSSH
PowerShell Just Enough Admin (JEA)
PowerShell scripting of Active Directory
PowerShell scripts to replace Microsoft LAPS
PowerShell certificate authentication, such as with YubiKeys
PowerShell hardening of TLS, RDP and SMB
PowerShell malware and lateral movement inside the LAN
PowerShell ransomware – too easy, all too easy