Windows 2000 Network Security Tips?

[wardog25]

I was wondering if I could get some tips on how to improve security for my Network.

All my servers are 2000 servers, and I have only one subnet and one domain. I have a router running NAT for internet access, but no firewall beyond that.

At this point we have no in-house web server or email server, so there are very few opportunites for hackers.

I'm just curious, what is my biggest vulnerability? Is it that I have no firewall on the router? What are the chances a hacker would break through that? And even if they did, what could they access? All private information is contained on windows 2000 servers. If a hacker got through the router, wouldn't they also need a username and password as well?

Anyway, I'm just wondering what security aspects are best to concentrate on and spend money on.

 

[Jpoandl]

I would say that your biggest problem is no firewall. It especally bad is you have a public ip address.

I'm not a hacker so I don't know exactly how they can get into your systems but without a firewall they definately can. There are programs that can be run to obtain information about your servers/router.

I would at the very least buy a router with a built in firewall. Even a low end SonicWall or WatchGaurd would work ($600). These devices have built in firewalls...

Then I would just make sure that my Windows servers and domain has good password policies and security policies applied (free).

In general, these two steps are good enough for small environments...

-later



Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2003

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[Castor66]

A firewall would be good but most routers offer nice basic firewall features anyway.

Your risk is the users having uninterrupted access to the Internet which leads to a flood of spyware and other crap. I would look to invest in a proxy/firewall.

For something simple and free get yourself Smoothwall. All you need is an old P2/400 with some disk space and you should be able to set up a proxy server and firewall in about 30 minutes.

On the LAN - get a decent updated antivirus package - not recommending any as they all pretty much do the same thing.

For your servers - get a decent security hardening book and apply it's knowledge to your servers.

That's a pretty good start.