PKI stands for Public Key Infrastructure and over recent
years has been gaining momentum and it basically consists
of two keys, a public and a private key.
Previous encryption methods we have looked at use a symmetric
key which means the same key is used to both encrypt and decrypt.
Public-key encryption is different, here there are the two
keys and if something is encrypted with the private key only
the public key can decrypt it, and if something is encrypted
with the public key only the private key can decrypt it.
As the names suggest the private key is known only by the
owner but the public key is known by all. This means you have
to keep the private key very private!
X.509 certificates are used for the distribution of the public
key which means Certificate Authorities (CA) are needed and
need to be configured as trusted for the domains.
If a user wants to send a message in private to a user they
encrypt the message using the recipients public key, this
means only the owner of the private key (the recipient) can
decrypt it.
The problem with public-key encryption however is that it
is slow and so public-key encryption is more commonly used
to distribute a faster symmetric key which is then used to
encrypt actual data.
What is the Microsoft
Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA)?
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Microsoft has released MBSA, a tool that analyzes a system
for information related to
- Windows OS version
- Microsoft IIS version
- Microsoft SQL Server version
- Hotfix checks
- Password checks
You can use MBSA to run checks against local or remote
machines. The tool runs only on Windows .NET Server, Windows
XP, and Windows 2000-based systems. However, you can use
the tool to scan remote computers that run Windows NT 4.0
Service Pack 4 (SP4) or later.
For more information about MBSA, visit Microsoft's Web
site. To download MBSA, visit Microsoft's download Web
site.
After you download the tool, run the mbsasetup.msi file
to install MBSA. You can run the tool in a graphical mode
by executing the MBSA shortcut from the Start menu, or you
can type
mbsacli.exe
from the command prompt. (Windows doesn't add the MBSA program
to the PATH variable by default, so you must either navigate
to the %programfiles%\microsoft baseline security analyzer
folder or add this folder to your PATH statement.
