Overview of the Windows 2000 Security Tools

Windows NT has some excellent security tools and features built into the operating system. In addition the operating system provides tools for security policy and account management and the Windows NT security model is flexible and can support a wide range of configurations. However, these tools are not centralized and the administrator needed to open three or four applications to configure various aspects of security. Using these tools can sometimes be difficult and complex at best. Additionally, with the distributed security model in windows 2000, the complexity has only increased. While NT provided adequate, if inconvenient, configuration tools, it lacked tools for security analysis. Windows 2000 builds on the NT security model and expands it to provide a comprehensive, flexible and extensible set of tools. Also, taking advantage of MMC technology, it provides a central administration point for the tool set by making the tools available as MMC snap-ins. Windows 2000 also add many tools that were lacking in the NT operating system. This paper will describe the location and use of the tools that are built into Windows 2000 operating system. With these tools, the administrators have a greater degree of control and can provide a secure internet- aware enterprise without purchasing third party tools.