TN-965 Windows Security Automation with Powershell

Course Overview:

PowerShell is made for Security Operations (SecOps) automation on Windows. SecOps requires automation in order to scale out security changes and monitoring beyond a handful of hosts. For example, when a vulnerability must be remediated but there is no patch for it yet, automation is needed to quickly and consistently enact the changes necessary. PowerShell “remoting” is encrypted remote command execution of PowerShell scripts in a way that can scale to thousands of endpoints and servers.

Imagine being able to hunt for indicators of compromise across thousands of machines with just a few lines of PowerShell code. Or imagine having the local Administrator account password reset every night on thousands of endpoints in a secure way, and being able to retrieve that password securely too.

We will show you to do these tasks and more. Transcription logging for forensics, strong encryption code signing, application whitelisting of scripts, IPSec port control, and Just Enough Admin (JEA).

As more and more of our systems are moved up to the cloud, PowerShell will become even more important. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Hyper-V and VMware already support PowerShell administration for many tasks.

Attendees to TN-965: Windows Security Automation with PowerShell will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

Date/Time	Event
01/06/2025 - 01/10/2025 08:00 -16:00	TN-965 Windows Security Automation with Powershell TechNow, Inc, San Antonio TX
04/28/2025 - 05/02/2025 08:00 -16:00	TN-965 Windows Security Automation with Powershell TechNow, Inc, San Antonio TX
07/07/2025 - 07/11/2025 08:00 -16:00	TN-965 Windows Security Automation with Powershell TechNow, Inc, San Antonio TX
11/03/2025 - 11/07/2025 08:00 -16:00	TN-965 Windows Security Automation with Powershell TechNow, Inc, San Antonio TX

Duration: 5 days

Intended Audience
This course is intended for IT Professionals already experienced in general Windows Server and Windows Client administration or already experienced in administering and supporting Application servers and services including applications like Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL. It is broadly intended for students who want to use Windows PowerShell to automate administrative tasks from the command line, using any Microsoft or independent software vendor (ISV) product that supports Windows PowerShell manageability.

Course Objectives:

PowerShell Overview and Tips

- Getting started running commands
- Using and updating the built-in help
- Execution policies
- Fun tricks with the ISE graphical editor
- Piping .NET and COM objects, not text
- Using properties and methods of objects
- Helping Linux admins feel more at home
- Aliases, cmdlets, functions, modules, etc.
- Customizing your profile script

What Can We Do With PowerShell

- PowerShell remote command execution
- Fan-out remoting and security
- File copy via PowerShell remoting
- Capturing the output of commands
- Parsing text files and logs with regex patterns
- Searching remote event logs faster with XPath
- Mounting the registry as a drive
- Exporting data to CSV, HTML and JSON files
- Parsing and mining nmap port scanner XML output
- Running scripts as scheduled jobs
- Pushing out scripts through Group Policy
- Importing modules and dot-sourcing functions
- http://www.PowerShellGallery.com

Write your own scripts

- Writing your own functions
- Passing arguments into your scripts
- Function parameters and returning output
- Flow control: if-then, do-while, foreach, switch
- The .NET Framework class library: a playground
- How to pipe data in/out of your scripts

Continuous Secure Configuration Enforcement

- How to use Group Policy and PowerShell together
- Automate with INF security templates
- How to customize INF templates
- Microsoft Security Compliance Manager (SCM)
- SECEDIT.EXE scripting
- Building an in-house security repository for SecOps/DevOps
- NSA’s Secure Host Baseline GPOs

Group Policy Precision Targeting

- Managing Group Policy Objects (GPOs) with PowerShell
- LSDOU, Block Inheritance, Enforced GPOs
- Group Policy permissions for targeting changes
- ADMX templates for mass registry editing
- Deploying PowerShell startup and logon scripts
- WMI item-level targeting of GPO preferences
- GPO scheduled tasks to run PowerShell scripts
- Remote command execution via GPO (not remoting)
- Empowering the Hunt Team to fight back!

Server Hardening for SecOps/DevOps

- Server Manager scripting with PowerShell
- Adding and removing roles and feature
- Remotely inventory roles, features, and apps
- Why Server Nano or Server Core
- Running PowerShell automatically after service failure
- Service account identities, passwords, and risks
- Tools to reset service account passwords securely

PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)

- DSC is Configuration Management built in for free
- Using DSC for continuous reinforcement of settings
- Writing your own DSC configuration scripts
- Free DSC resource modules: www.PowerShellGallery.com
- How to push DSC configurations to many targets
- DSC background job processing in push mode
- Examples: sync files, install roles, manage groups
- Auditing a remote target against a DSC MOF template
- “ApplyAndAutoCorrect” mode for continuous enforcement

PowerShell Just Enough Admin (JEA)

- JEA is Windows sudo, like on Linux
- JEA is Windows setuid root, like on Linux
- Restricting commands and arguments
- Verbose transcription logging
- How to set up and configure JEA
- Privilege Access Workstations (PAWs)

PowerShell and WMI

- Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) service
- What is WMI and why do hackers abuse it so much?
- Using PowerShell to query WMI CIM classes
- WMI authentication and traffic encryption
- Inventory operating system versions and installed software
- WMI remote command execution versus PowerShell remoting
- PowerShell security best practices
- PowerShell transcription logging to catch hackers

Prerequisites:

Previous Windows Server and Windows Client management knowledge and hands on experience.
Experience installing and configuring Windows Server into existing enterprise environments, or as standalone installations.
Knowledge and experience of network adapter configuration, basic Active Directory user administration, and basic disk configuration.
Knowledge and hands on experience specifically with Windows Server 2012/Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8/Windows 8.1 would be of benefit but is not essential.

Comments

Latest comments from students

Liked the class? Then let everyone know!

TN-979: Intrusion Analyst Course

Course Overview:

Intrusion Analyst is a hands-on course that covers intrusion detection in-depth. This includes concepts such as the use of Snort, network traffic analysis, and IDS signatures.

A skills focus enables the student to better absorb the subject matter and perform successfully on the job. This is not death by power point. The course is aligned with information assurance operators and executing hands-on labs. Lecture and labs walk the student through the knowledge required to truly understand the mechanics of packet and intrusion analysis.

Attendees to TN-979: Intrusion Analyst will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 days

Course Objectives:

Advanced Snort Concepts
Analyst Toolkit
Domain Name System (DNS)
Examining Packet Crafting
Examining Packet Header Fields
Fragmentation
ICMP Theory
IDS Interoperability
IDS Patterns
IDS/IPS Management & Architecture Issues
Indications, Warnings & Traffic Correlation
IPv6
Microsoft Protocols
Network Traffic Analysis
NIDS Evasion, Instertion & Checksums
Snort Fundamentals & Configuration
Snort GUIs & Sensor Management
Snort Performance, Active Response & Tagging
Snort Rules
Stimulus Response
TCPdump Fundamentals
TCP/IP Fundamentals
Wireshark Fundamentals
Writing TCPdump Filters

Course Prerequisites:

GSEC or equivalent experience
UNIX, Windows, Networking, and Security Experience
This is a hands-on skill course requiring comfort with command line interaction and network communications

Comments

Latest comments from students

User: Tosha

Instructor comments: Dave was an excellent instructor. He is very informative and knowledgeable in the course and the material. I have enjoyed the class and I would take another course with him as the instructor.

Facilities comments: Very nice and clean hotel.

User: buckey26

Instructor comments: Dave was one of the best instructors I have ever had for a tech course. He broke down everything to the point where you can understand it internally.

Liked the class? Then let everyone know!

PA-242: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Manage Cyberthreats (EDU-231)

Course Overview: PA-242: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Manage Cyberthreats (EDU-231) Training Class is a two-day course that teaches students strategies in defense against cyberthreats. Successful completion of this course enables administrators to better understand the threat landscape. This is not a virtualized theoretical course. This is hands-on, real world instruction, directly relevant to the DoD and Commercial implementations of Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls.

Each student is issued a physical Palo Alto firewall and a Cisco layer 3 switch at their desk. Real hardware per student for real experience and real skill development. TechNow provides a very comprehensive client infrastructure that includes Windows, Linux, and multiple packet sniffer agents.

The instructor for this course has been a lead in Unix kernel development to implement firewall and intrusion detection technologies. Additionally, the instructor has taught several security appliance products and carries several SANS, ISC2, ISACA, Cisco, Unix, and Windows certifications.

Attendees to the PA-242: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Manaage Cyberthreats (EDU-231) Training Course will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Dates/Locations: No Events

Duration: 2 days

Course Objectives: Students attending this training course will gain an understanding of cyberthreats and their characteristics. Students will learn how to manage cyberthreats using security policies, profiles, and signatures to protect their network against emerging threats.

Day 1

Mod 1: Threat Landscape
- Advanced Persistent
- Threats
- Data Breaches and Tactics
- Threat Management
- Strategies
Mod 2: Integrated
- Approach to Threat
- Protection
- Integrated Approach to
- Protection
- Next-Generation Firewall
- Advanced Endpoint
- Protection
Mod 3: Network Visibility
- Zero Trust Model
- SSL Decryption
- Decryption Policy
Mod 4: Reducing the Attack
- Surf
- ection

Day 2

Mod 5: Handling Known
- Threats
- WildFire Analysis
- Security Profiles
Mod 6: Handling Unknown
- Traffic and Zero-Day Exploits
- WildFire
- Researching Threat Events
- Identifying Unknown
- Applications
Mod 7: Investigating
- Breaches
- Identify IOCs Using
- App-Scope
- Log Correlation
- Finding Infected Host
Mod 8: Using Custom
- Signatures
- Creating Custom App-IDs
- Threat Signatures

Prerequisites:

Students must complete the PA-213: Install, Configure, and Manage course
Understanding of network concepts, including routing, switching, and IP addressing
In-depth knowledge of port-based security and security technologies such as IPS, proxy, and content filtering

This course is in no way associated with Palo Alto Networks, Inc.

Comments

Latest comments from students

Like the class? Then let everyone know!

TN-969: Windows Security Administrator Course

Course Overview:

A skills focus enables the student to better absorb the subject matter and perform successfully on the job. This is not death by power point. The course is aligned with information assurance operators and executing hands-on labs to secure Windows systems. Lecture and labs start with quick review of Active Directory and group policy to enforce security mechanisms within the Windows architecture. Students then gain network experience and use sniffing to help exemplify the benefit of learning wired and wireless security configurations. PowerShell is made for SecOps/DevOps automation and students will learn to write PowerShell scripts to automate security operations and Desired State Configuration (DSC). The course concludes with exercising real attack strategies to demonstrate the effectives of properly securing your host.

Attendees to TN-969: Windows Security Administrator course will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 days

Course Objectives:

Active Directory and BloodHound
Security Controls
PKI
Encryption
Wireless & Network Security and Hardening DNS
802.1x and Endpoint Protection
Firewalls and VPN
PowerShell Scripting
JEA, DSC, Enterprise Security with PowerShell
Windows Attack Strategies

Prerequisites:

Security+
Windows System Administration Skills

Comments

Latest comments from students

User: bbrabender

Instructor comments: Instructor was very knowledgeable and help more inexperienced users with concepts as well explaining in a way that can be understood.

Facilities comments: N/A

User: dale.r.anderson

Instructor comments: Instructor was well knowlegeable accross alot of domains.

Facilities comments: Pretty good

Liked the class? Then let everyone know!

TN-305: Designing, Implementing, Administering and Securing Wireless Local Area Networks (LANs)

Course Overview:

This course, TN-305: Designing, Implementing, Administering and Securing Wireless Local Area Networks (LANs), covers the two main objectives for those entering the wireless world, understanding the technology & addressing its security. TN-305: Designing, Implementing, Administering and Securing Wireless Local Area Networks (LANs) takes advantage of the student’s existing expertise to provide a challenging introductory course. Covering a broad range of wireless networking topics & an introduction on how to secure a wireless LAN from hackers. To insure wireless availability you need to understand proper design choices & administration practices. To protect valuable information on your network you need to know how attacks occur & techniques used to secure your wireless network.

Attendees to TN-305: Designing, Implementing, Administering and Securing Wireless Local Area Networks (LANs) will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Dates/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 Days

Course Objectives:

Radio Frequency (RF) Fundamentals
Spread Spectrum Technologies
802.11 Network Architecture
Physical & MAC Layers
Hardware Installation, Configuration, & Management
Antennas & Accessories
Wireless Network Management
Troubleshooting Wireless LANs
Site Surveying
Wireless LAN Security
Organizations & Standards

Prerequisites:

Attendees should have network administration skills. These skills can be obtained through TechNow’s N-205 & N-305: CCNA/ICND Training program or our highly respected cross platform TN-385: TCP/IP Analysis & Implementation course.

Comments

Latest comments from students

User: TMPRIESTLEY

Instructor comments: The instructor was very well versed on the topic and knew how to apply it to real-life examples. He led the labs and was very excited about the topic which kept the interest of myself and other class members. Sometimes his volume level was a little high- however the room the class was in was very small. Too small for a big personality!

Facilities comments: I was unaware of the facility changes, but that was at no fault of anyone since I was a drop-in for the course. They were very helpful and quick to mediate the issue.