Forestall’s FSProtect is a specialized security solution designed to safeguard one of the most critical components of enterprise IT: Active Directory (AD). Active Directory plays a central role in managing identities, permissions, and access within organizations, which also makes it a prime target for attackers looking to escalate privileges or move laterally through a network. FSProtect provides a comprehensive shield for AD by continuously auditing its security and highlighting weaknesses before attackers can exploit them.

At its core, FSProtect identifies vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and hidden attack vectors in your AD environment. It performs in-depth scans of your directory’s configuration, analyzing objects such as user and computer accounts, security groups, Group Policy settings, and more. Using this data, it builds an Active Directory Security Graph that visualizes relationships and potential paths of attack – for example, if a regular user account is indirectly linked to a Domain Admin through certain group memberships or delegation, FSProtect will flag that path. This graphical approach helps uncover lateral movement opportunities and privilege escalation routes that might not be obvious to administrators.

Some key features and benefits of FSProtect include:

• Active Directory Inventory & Exposure Mapping: FSProtect creates a detailed inventory of your AD objects and their permissions. It maps out which accounts have elevated privileges, which machines have weak security settings, and how various elements interact. This mapping is crucial to understand the blast radius if a certain account is compromised. For instance, FSProtect can quickly show you all accounts that have Domain Admin equivalence or all computers a particular service account has admin rights on.
• Vulnerability & Misconfiguration Assessment: The platform continuously checks AD for known weaknesses and configuration errors. This includes things like accounts with passwords that never expire, obsolete or disabled accounts that haven’t been removed, insecure default settings, weak encryption protocols, and more. FSProtect uses an evolving knowledge base of AD security best practices and known attack techniques (like detecting if the Krbtgt account has not been reset recently, a risk for “Golden Ticket” attacks). When issues are found, they are categorized by severity so you know what to tackle first.
• Real-Time Change Monitoring: AD is a dynamic system; changes occur whenever admins update policies or users are added/removed. FSProtect can monitor changes in real time or on a schedule and detect anomalies. For example, if suddenly a new user is added to the Domain Admins group on a weekend, or a critical service account’s privileges are expanded, FSProtect will alert you. Early detection of suspicious changes is key to stopping insider threats or compromised admin accounts in action.
• Intuitive Reporting & Remediation Guidance: For every issue found, FSProtect provides clear descriptions and recommended remediation steps. It might suggest, for example, removing a user from an excessive group, enabling LDAP signing to prevent certain attacks, or turning off outdated protocols. It also generates executive-level reports summarizing AD risk posture and technical reports for IT teams with all details. Actionable remediation plans are a core part of the solution, ensuring that fixing the issues is as straightforward as identifying them.

By using FSProtect, organizations can proactively strengthen their Active Directory and significantly reduce the risk of catastrophic breaches. Many of the worst cyberattacks succeed because they target AD – planting backdoors, creating rogue admin accounts, or extracting credential data. FSProtect acts as an early warning system and a hardening tool, so your directory is not the easy pickings it might be in a default state. It essentially helps implement a Zero Trust approach around AD: never assume your AD is secure by default; continuously verify and fortify it.

ICM Connect brings FSProtect to organizations that rely on Active Directory as the backbone of their IT. Our team will assist in deploying FSProtect and interpreting its findings, working with your IT administrators to prioritize and remediate AD weaknesses. With Forestall’s FSProtect in place, supported by ICM Connect’s expertise, you can be confident that your Active Directory is not an open door but a hardened vault, backed by continuous vigilance and improvement.