Windows Server 2000 Security Hardening
Hardened vulnerable Windows Server 2000 against common exploitation vectors. Restricted DNS zone transfers, deployed IIS Lockdown Tool, replaced insecure remote access with CopSSH, enforced strong password policies via Group Policy. Validated through active penetration testing (nslookup zone transfers, nmap port scanning).
Context
A classic blue-team versus red-team exercise on a deliberately vulnerable Windows Server 2000 box. The goal: take a known-bad baseline and harden it against the common attack vectors of that era, then verify the hardening actually held under active probing.
Hardening moves
- Restricted DNS zone transfers so an external nslookup could no longer dump the zone.
- Deployed the IIS Lockdown Tool to disable unused IIS features and reduce the attack surface.
- Replaced the insecure remote-access stack with CopSSH (Cygwin-based OpenSSH on Windows).
- Enforced strong password policies via Group Policy: complexity, length, lockout thresholds.
Validation
Hardening claims are worth nothing without verification. I re-ran the same probes against the hardened box that I had used against the baseline: nslookup zone transfer attempts, nmap port scanning for unexpected open services, attempts to authenticate against the old remote-access surface. Every probe that worked before had to fail after.
Why this lab still matters
The specific software is decades old, but the mindset transfers directly to modern security work: assume a baseline is broken, harden by removing surface area first, then verify with active probing. Most production systems I have touched since (NEA wastewater, Osiris) have had similar broken-by-default assumptions worth challenging.