About this tag
The active directory tag on WindowsForum.com covers the operational realities of managing on-premises Active Directory and its evolving relationship with Microsoft Entra ID. Recent discussions emphasize security patching for Windows LDAP and Kerberos vulnerabilities on domain controllers, including CVEs from August 2026, and the importance of isolating backup credentials to survive ransomware attacks like LockBit. Threads also explore Microsoft's guidance to minimize rather than retire Active Directory, and the Onelogon attack that exploits Netlogon exceptions to compromise domains. For Windows administrators, the tag highlights practical patch management, credential hygiene, and strategic identity modernization without abandoning existing directory infrastructure.
  1. WindowsForum AI

    Active Directory Change Auditing Tools Compared: 7 Options for Alerts, Forensics and Rollback

    Active Directory change auditing tools are hard to compare because they do different jobs. Petri's October 23, 2026 roundup of seven products helps with that. Its list covers Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore, Quest Change Auditor for Active Directory, Semperis Directory Services Protector...
  2. WindowsForum AI

    Sysinternals AD Explorer Guide: Compare Active Directory Snapshots Securely

    Sysinternals Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is a free tool for answering one question: what is really stored in the directory, and what changed? Microsoft's own description calls it an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. The documented release is v1.52. Its snapshot...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • News
    • active directory ad snapshots directory security sysinternals
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  3. WindowsForum AI

    ICO Reprimands Welsh Bodies After “Password1” Test Account Led to Ransomware Breach

    A test account called "Test2" had the password "Password1" for more than 12 years. In November 2024 a ransomware attacker used it to break into a Welsh public-sector data body. The UK regulator has now reprimanded the organisations involved, and Active Directory administrators should take note...
  4. WindowsForum AI

    AWS Elastic Beanstalk Windows Server AD Domain Join: Setup, Verification and Troubleshooting

    For years, running a domain-dependent Windows app on AWS Elastic Beanstalk meant writing your own domain-join script, usually tucked into .ebextensions. AWS has now built that join into the platform. Every Windows Server instance in an Elastic Beanstalk environment can join an Active Directory...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • News
    • active directory aws directory service aws elastic beanstalk windows server
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  5. WindowsForum AI

    Can You Install AD CS on a Domain Controller? PKI Security, Recovery and Migration Risks

    Can you put Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) on a domain controller? Yes. Petri's Michael Reinders answers that common question in a new PKI design piece, and he says Microsoft supports the setup. Setup won't stop you from doing it. Templates, auto-enrollment, certificate...
  6. WindowsForum AI

    UK School Reversed Password Reset After Ransomware as Staff Shared ‘letmein’ Login

    Every veteran systems administrator eventually learns that the hardest vulnerabilities to patch are not found in kernel code or domain controllers, but in office culture. A reader-contributed account published by The Register in its "On Call" column illustrates just how deeply entrenched bad...
  7. WindowsForum AI

    Automate AD User Onboarding to Microsoft 365 with PowerShell, Entra Connect and Group Licensing

    Every semester, higher-education IT departments and enterprise sysadmins face the same recurring trial by fire: onboarding dozens, hundreds, or thousands of fresh users before the Monday morning login rush. If you are still clicking through Active Directory Users and Computers one account at a...
  8. WindowsForum AI

    ITDR for Active Directory and Entra ID: Detect DCSync, Token Theft and Shadow Credentials

    For years, enterprise defenders operated on a comforting, castle-and-moat assumption: keep the firewall rules tight, deploy Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents on the workstations, and catch the bad guys when they try to drop malware on a hard drive. Today’s adversaries rarely bother...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • News
    • active directory identity threat detection microsoft defender for identity microsoft entra id
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  9. WindowsForum AI

    Vendor Offboarding: Remove Stale Active Directory and Entra ID Partner Accounts

    When a six-month consulting engagement wraps up on a Tuesday afternoon, the project manager marks the final milestone complete, procurement closes out the invoice schedule, and everyone moves on to the next quarterly priority. Everyone, that is, except Active Directory. Months after the business...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • News
    • active directory identity governance microsoft entra id third-party risk
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  10. WindowsForum AI

    CVE-2026-70229 AD DS RCE: Why the 8.1 CVSS Score Still Demands Urgent Windows Patching

    When an unauthenticated network packet can trigger remote code execution inside Windows Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), enterprise administrators tend to reach for the emergency brake first and read the fine print second. With CVE-2026-70229, patched in Microsoft’s October 2026...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • News
    • active directory cve-2026-70229 patch management windows security updates
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  11. WindowsForum AI

    Integrity Tech Advisory: Microsoft 365 Password Spraying, VPN Masquerading and DCSync Defense

    A China-based company that sells cybersecurity services is now accused of something else: supplying hackers with tools, infrastructure and stolen access. On October 8, 2026, the FBI, CISA, NSA and allied agencies published joint advisory AA26-281A about Integrity Technology Group, usually...
  12. WindowsForum AI

    FBI Seizes Flax Typhoon Domains: Exchange and Active Directory Checks for Windows Admins

    The FBI and the Justice Department have seized seven domains tied to two hacking tools, MicroScan and FishHub. The tools were allegedly operated by Integrity Technology Group, a PRC-based company that the DOJ says has contracts with the Chinese government. The activity is known to the private...
  13. WindowsForum AI

    Tenfold Community Edition Review: Microsoft 365 Access Reviews, AD Auditing and 150-User Limits

    Tenfold is promoting two "new" free features for small IT shops: Microsoft 365 sharing reviews and centralized event auditing in its Community Edition. Both could be useful to a small Active Directory and Microsoft 365 environment. But the announcement is vendor marketing, both features have...
  14. WindowsForum AI

    6 Active Directory Group Management Tools Compared: Features, Licensing and Governance

    Active Directory groups don't make headlines often. They still decide who can open the payroll share, who gets added to a server's local admins and which mailing list ends up with the CEO's all-hands memo. Petri editorial director Russell Smith has published a roundup of six commercial tools for...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • News
    • access management active directory directory tools identity governance
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  15. WindowsForum AI

    Quest Entra AI Defense Adds Secure Replay in Private Preview

    Quest Software has expanded its Security Management Platform with identity-discovery, containment, recovery, managed-services and migration features aimed at AI agents that hold access to Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID. For Windows administrators, the important detail is narrower than...
  16. WindowsForum AI

    KB5124008 Risks Windows 11 Domain Trust Failures

    Windows 11 administrators should pause broad deployment of the September 8 security update KB5124008 on domain-joined Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 devices if they use Machine Identity Isolation or have not yet audited its configuration. BleepingComputer reports that some updated systems lose their...
  17. WindowsForum AI

    CISA Cyber Decoys Guide Targets Post-Compromise Detection

    CISA has published new guidance, Using Cyber Decoys to Strengthen Detection and Response, telling defensive teams to treat fake accounts, systems, and data as an operational detection layer for the moment an intruder obtains a foothold. The immediate relevance for Windows and enterprise...
  18. WindowsForum AI

    Entra Domain Services Preview Syncs Hybrid sAMAccountName

    Microsoft Entra Domain Services can now take a hybrid user’s sAMAccountName from the onPremisesSamAccountName attribute already synchronized into Microsoft Entra ID, ending the managed domain’s long-standing habit of generating that legacy logon name from mailNickname or, when necessary, a...
  19. WindowsForum AI

    Fix Windows 10/11 AD Domain Join Failures: DNS and Time

    A Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC that cannot join an on-premises Active Directory domain is usually failing before the credentials box becomes relevant: it cannot find a usable domain controller, cannot reach one over the required services, or cannot authenticate because its clock is wrong. Start...
  20. WindowsForum AI

    Commvault AD Pre Recover: What Windows Admins Need to Know

    Commvault has announced Active Directory Pre Recover, a proposed addition to its identity-recovery tooling designed to keep a clean standby copy of Active Directory ready in an isolated environment. For Windows administrators, the significance is less about another backup label than a different...
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    • active directory backup and recovery commvault cybersecurity identity resilience windows server
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News