Password Security Hardening in Active Directory: A Guide for Corporate IT

In today's corporate IT landscape, Active Directory (AD) remains a critical component for user authentication and resource management. While cloud solutions like Azure AD are gaining traction, many organizations maintain hybrid environments or continue to rely heavily on on-premises AD. This guide focuses on enhancing password security in Active Directory using the PasswordSolution PowerShell module.

What is PasswordSolution?

PasswordSolution is a PowerShell module designed to address two critical aspects of password management in corporate environments:

1. Enterprise-ready password notifications for users, service account owners, and administrators when their passwords are about to expire.
2. Comprehensive password quality analysis, providing insights into duplicate passwords, weak passwords, empty passwords, clear text passwords, LMHashes, and other security-related data.

By leveraging the DSInternals PowerShell module, PasswordSolution gathers Active Directory hashes and presents the data in a user-friendly report, making it easier for IT professionals to identify and address potential security vulnerabilities.

TL;DR - Summary for Busy IT Managers

PasswordSolution generates an HTML-based report with five key sections:

1. Executive summary of issues detected by DSInternals
2. Comprehensive list of all AD users with detailed account information
3. Analysis of duplicate password groups
4. Geographical distribution of password issues (useful for multi-national corporations)
5. Detailed log output for IT staff to investigate specific issues

Important Security Considerations

PasswordSolution requires specific AD permissions:

• Replicating Directory Changes All
• Alternatively, Domain Admin/Enterprise Admin (not recommended for security best practices)

Installing PasswordSolution and DSInternals

For environments with internet access, use:

Install-Module PasswordSolution -Verbose
Install-Module DSInternals -Verbose

For air-gapped or highly secure environments, use offline installation:

mkdir C:\DownloadModules
Save-Module PasswordSolution -Path C:\DownloadModules -Verbose
Save-Module DSInternals -Path C:\DownloadModules -Verbose

Running Password Quality Scan in Active Directory

Basic usage for a quick scan:

Show-PasswordQuality -FilePath $PSScriptRoot\Reporting\PasswordQuality.html -Online -WeakPasswords "Test1", "Test2", "Test3" -Verbose -SeparateDuplicateGroups -AddWorldMap

For more control and better readability, use PowerShell splatting:

$showPasswordQualitySplat = @{
    FilePath                = "$PSScriptRoot\Reporting\PasswordQuality_$(Get-Date -f yyyy-MM-dd_HHmmss).html"
    WeakPasswords           = "Test1", "Test2", "Test3", 'February2023!#!@ok', $Passwords | ForEach-Object { $_ }
    SeparateDuplicateGroups = $true
    PassThru                = $true
    AddWorldMap             = $true
    LogPath                 = "$PSScriptRoot\Logs\PasswordQuality_$(Get-Date -f yyyy-MM-dd_HHmmss).log"
    Online                  = $true
    LogMaximum              = 5
}
Show-PasswordQuality @showPasswordQualitySplat

Generating a List of Weak Passwords

To enhance the effectiveness of PasswordSolution, you can generate a custom list of weak passwords that may be specific to your organization:

$Months = @(
# english
"January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December"
# Add more months in different languages relevant to your organization
)
$Numbers = 0..9
$Years = 2020..2023
$SpecialChar = @("!", "@", "#", "$", "%", "^", "&", "*", "(", ")", "_", "-", "+", "=", "[", "]", "{", "}", "|", "\")

$Passwords = foreach ($Year in $Years) {
Write-Color -Text "Year: ", $Year -Color Yellow, White
$YearPasswords = foreach ($month in $months) {
    foreach ($number in $numbers) {
        foreach ($special in $SpecialChar) {
            $month + $Year.ToString() + $number.ToString() + $special
            $Year.ToString() + $month + $number.ToString() + $special
            $month + $Year.ToString() + $special
        }
    }
}
Write-Color -Text "Year: ", $Year, " passwords created: ", $YearPasswords.Count -Color Yellow, White
$YearPasswords
}
$Passwords.Count

Installing / Updating PasswordSolution

To install or update PasswordSolution in a corporate environment:

Install-Module PasswordSolution -Force -Verbose

For non-administrative installation (useful for testing or individual use):

Install-Module PasswordSolution -Scope CurrentUser -Verbose

Best Practices for Corporate Password Security

1. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): While PasswordSolution helps improve password security, combining it with MFA significantly enhances your overall security posture.
2. Regular Audits: Schedule regular password quality audits using PasswordSolution. Monthly or quarterly scans can help track improvements and identify new vulnerabilities.
3. User Education: Use the insights gained from PasswordSolution to create targeted user education programs. Focus on departments or user groups with the highest incidence of weak or duplicate passwords.
4. Password Managers: Consider implementing an enterprise password manager to help users create and maintain strong, unique passwords for all their accounts.
5. Tiered Access Model: Implement a tiered access model in your Active Directory structure, ensuring that administrative accounts have the strongest possible password policies.

Conclusion

PasswordSolution provides a powerful tool for corporate IT teams to assess and improve password security in Active Directory environments. By regularly using this tool and following the best practices outlined in this guide, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of password-related security breaches.

Remember that password security is just one aspect of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. Combine the use of PasswordSolution with other security measures such as regular patching, network segmentation, and continuous monitoring to create a robust defense against cyber threats.