To better your abilities to understand computer threats and how to protect against them you need to
understand how a computer's operating system works.
In this section we're going to learn about Microsoft Windows and Linux operating system.
The most well known and used computer operating system is Windows.
I'm assuming that all of you have used a Windows operating system at one point or another but just in
case you're not very familiar with it.
Let's take a tour of some of the programs that you can run on a Windows computer.
Here we are on my Windows 7 laptop.
The easiest way to navigate around the Windows operating system is to go to the Start button and then
search for whatever program you're looking for.
So for example if I just want to find our basic system information for my Windows computer I can type
in system
and then it comes up with any options that have system in the name.
So here I can see what version of Windows I'm running as well as my processor and RAM information.
This can be helpful information if you're investigating a security issue on a Windows computer because
then you'll know what vulnerabilities the computer may have based on its operating system version.
But Windows 7 is going to have different vulnerabilities when compared to Windows 8 or 10.
Of course it's critical to keep your Windows operating systems up to date from the system page on Lost
him pain.
You can go to Windows updates and as you can see I'm a little behind here so I want to make sure to
install these updates to make sure that my computer is protected for any security vulnerabilities out
there.
Other things I like to look at as far as security goes with Windows is the Windows Firewall and Windows
Defender.
Go back to the start menu and just search for firewall.
Click on Windows firewall.
Here I can see if my windows firewall is enabled or not.
As you can see the windows firewall can help prevent hackers or malicious software from gaining access
to your computer.
You definitely want to make sure that your firewall is enabled.
Windows operating systems come with windows the Finder which is an additional layer of security for
your computer that helps to protect against spyware and potentially unwon in software.
So this is another really good basic tool that you can use to help protect your Windows operating system
but so far I've shown you the Windows Firewall and Windows Defender of course in addition to those default
security knocking ism's you're going to have some type of anti-virus or anti-malware installed on your
Windows device that should be a given.
If you don't have anti-virus and anti-malware software running on your Windows computer you will most
definitely get infected and be vulnerable to exploits.
My computer anti-virus is running the system center and point protection from Microsoft.
So is that for real time protection for anti-virus.
And then in addition to that I'm running malware bytes for anti malware and ransomware.
So again back to the defense in-depth concept you want to have multiple layers of security to protect
your endpoints.
One really good basic tool to use when you're working on a Windows computer is the command line prompt.
So if you search for ACMD and launch that this is our command line prompt and you can access files from
here do all sorts of things most of the time when I am accessing the command line prompt.
I'm looking for network information for the Windows device so IP config slash all is a really good command
to run and they'll give me some of my network information like IP address my default gateway DHP server
DNS servers the letter to mac address for my network interface card.
One of my favorite Windows tools to see what's going on with an endpoint is the resource monitor.
So if we go to our start menu and search for resource and then click on resource monitor I can get a
really good look into what programs are running on the device what kind of resources they're using for
CPQ memory desk and even network connections.
So if I have a computer that has some suspicious activity going on I can come in here to the network
tab and see what connections are being made for which addresses and applications.