Hacking For Beginners – Manthan Desai

2010

42. Windows PowerShell Security in brief

First of all the question arises in your mind is that what is

Windows PowerShell???

Windows PowerShell is Microsoft's task automation framework, consisting of a command-line shell andassociated scripting language built on top of, and integrated with, the .NET Framework. PowerShell provides full accessto COM and WMI, enabling administrators to perform administrative tasks on both local and remote Windows systems.

In PowerShell, administrative tasks are generally performed by cmdlets (pronounced command-lets), specialized

.NET classes implementing a particular operation. Sets of cmdlets may be combined together

in scripts, executables (which are standalone applications), or instantiating regular .NET classes (or WMI/COM

Objects). These work by accessing data in different data stores, system or registry, which are made available

to the PowerShell runtime via Windows PowerShell providers.

Windows PowerShell also provides a hosting mechanism with which the Windows PowerShell runtime can be embedded

inside other applications. These applications then leverage Windows PowerShell functionality to implement certain

operations, including those exposed via the graphical interface. This capability has been utilized by Microsoft Exchange

Server 2007 to expose its management functionality as PowerShell cmdlets and providers and implement

the graphical management tools as PowerShell hosts which invoke the necessary cmdlets. Other Microsoft applications

including Microsoft SQL Server 2008 their management interface via PowerShell cmdlets. With PowerShell,

graphical interface-based management applications on Windows are layered on top of Windows PowerShell. In the future

all Microsoft applications running on the Windows platform are to be PowerShell aware.

Windows PowerShell includes its own extensive, console-based help, similar to man pages in UNIX shells via the Get-

Help cmdlet.

Let us now Study About the built-in PowerShell security features as well as some additional security you can configureonce in PowerShell.With all of the effort and sweat that has gone into PowerShell, it had better come with some advanced security. Well, itdoes! PowerShell is not just your routine scripting language. There are built in security features, as well as someadditional security you can configure once in PowerShell.

PowerShell Default Security

Just getting to the PowerShell interface can be a task for some. Not that this is security related, just that you must be inthe PowerShell interface before you can do much of anything. This in itself is security. There are however, some defaultsecurity measures that are there by design to help ensure that anyone with malicious intent is denied their efforts.

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