Chapter 3. Secure a network infrastructure

Karl is the IT director of a local law firm. He doesn’t believe in enabling Windows Firewall on any of his infrastructure servers. “It’s just too much hassle,” Karl explained. “We have a strong hardware firewall at our network perimeter. Inside the firewall we believe we have a trusted fabric, so we turn off the Windows Firewall on all server and desktop systems to facilitate remote management.”

Don’t be like Karl. Windows Firewall is a software, host-based firewall that is every bit as present in Windows Server 2016 as it is in every previous server operating system since Windows Server 2003.

By restricting the network traffic that is allowed to reach your servers, you reduce those servers’ attack surface. ...

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