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!

RH-355: RHCSA Rapid Track Course

Course Overview:

The RHCSA Rapid Track Course  is designed for experienced Linux® system administrators who want to expand their technical skill sets and become accredited with the Red Hat® Certified System Administration (RHCSA) certification. To successfully navigate this course, students should have experience with the Linux command line—including the necessary skills to execute common commands, such as cp, grep, sort, mkdir, tar, mkfs, ssh, and dnf—and be familiar with accessing man pages for help. At the completion of the course, students will be adequately prepared to take the RHCSA exam (EX200) .

Date/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 days

Course Objectives:

  • Introduce Linux and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux ecosystem.
  • Run commands and view shell environments.
  • Manage, organize, and secure files.
  • Manage users, groups and user security policies.
  • Control and monitor systemd services.
  • Configure remote access using the web console and SSH.
  • Configure network interfaces and settings.
  • Manage software using DNF
  • Access security files, file systems, and networks
  • Execute shell scripting and automation techniques
  • Manage storage devices, logical volumes, and file systems
  • Manage security and system access
  • Control the boot process and system services
  • Running containers

Prerequisites:

Experience in the field system administration.

Comments

Latest comments from students

Liked the class?  Then let everyone know!

TN-949: Certified Firewall Analyst Course

Course Overview:

This is a hands-on course that covers many of the concepts of securing the perimeter of an organization. This includes concepts such as intrusion detection, packet filtering, and central logging.

A skills focus enables the student to better absorb the subject matter and perform better 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 Firewalls.

This course is an excellent precursor to PA-215 Palo Alto Firewall Essentials FastTrack.

Attendees to TN-949: Certified Firewall Analyst Prep will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 days

Course Objectives:

  • Analyzing Network and Wireless Design
  • Creating and Auditing a Rulebase
  • Firewall Assessment and Penetration Testing
  • Host-Based Detection and DLP
  • Incident Detection and Analysis
  • IOS and Router Security
  • IPv6 and ICMPv6
  • Log Collection and Analysis
  • NAT and Proxies
  • Netfilter IPtables
  • Network Access Control
  • Network-Based Intrusion Detection
  • Packet Filters and Inspection
  • Packet Fragmentation
  • Perimeter Concepts and IP Fundamentals
  • Securing Hosts and Services
  • TCP/IP Protocols
  • VPN Design and Auditing
  • VPN Implementation

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

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

A

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-963: 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-963: Windows Security Automation with PowerShell will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 3 days

Course Objectives:

Day One
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

Day Two
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

Day Three
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:

  • 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

Liked the class?  Then let everyone know!