I’ve been reading through Russell Smith’s new book Least Privilege Security for Windows 7, Vista and XP and I’ve realized it’s about time for a book on this subject. I’ve covered some of the material in the past including in my recent SearchWinIT.com tip Should Windows users have full administrative rights? and I know there’s content on this topic scattered across various books, articles, etc. but I’ve never seen a book dedicated to the subject. Pretty cool.
The book gets pretty technical showing various ways to use Group Policy, Software Restriction Policies/AppLocker and so on to really lock down workstations…presumably without it getting in the way of doing business. Speaking of that, to me, the most valuable chapter is Chapter 2: Political and Cultural Challenges for Least Privilege Security. Get over those humps and the technical stuff is a relative piece of cake.
From what I’ve seen thus far Least Privilege Security for Windows 7, Vista and XP is a solid book from a relatively young, yet promising, publisher (Packt Publishing) on a very important topic for Windows admins these days. You can buy the book on Amazon.com here:
Here’s a sample chapter from the book:
Solving Least Privilege Problems with the Application Compatibility Toolkit
Packt also has an online portal (PacktLib) that allows you search across all of their books.
Definitely worth checking out.