PowerShell Automation and Scripting for Cybersecurity

Explore PowerShell’s offensive and defensive capabilities to strengthen your organization’s securityPurchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBookKey FeaturesMaster PowerShell for security by configuring, auditing, monitoring, exploiting, and bypassing defensesResearch and develop methods to bypass security features and use stealthy tradecraftExplore essential security features in PowerShell and protect your environment against exploits and bypassesBook DescriptionTake your cybersecurity skills to the next level with this comprehensive guide to PowerShell security! Whether you’re a red or blue teamer, you’ll gain a deep understanding of PowerShell’s security capabilities and how to use them. After revisiting PowerShell basics and scripting fundamentals, you’ll dive into PowerShell Remoting and remote management technologies. You’ll learn how to configure and analyze Windows event logs and understand the most important event logs and IDs to monitor your environment. You’ll dig deeper into PowerShell’s capabilities to interact with the underlying system, Active Directory and Azure AD. Additionally, you’ll explore Windows internals including APIs and WMI, and how to run PowerShell without powershell.exe. You’ll uncover authentication protocols, enumeration, credential theft, and exploitation, to help mitigate risks in your environment, along with a red and blue team cookbook for day-to-day security tasks. Finally, you’ll delve into mitigations, including Just Enough Administration, AMSI, application control, and code signing, with a focus on configuration, risks, exploitation, bypasses, and best practices. By the end of this book, you’ll have a deep understanding of how to employ PowerShell from both a red and blue team perspective.What you will learnLeverage PowerShell, its mitigation techniques, and detect attacksFortify your environment and systems against threatsGet unique insights into event logs and IDs in relation to PowerShell and detect attacksConfigure PSRemoting and learn about risks, bypasses, and best practicesUse PowerShell for system access, exploitation, and hijackingRed and blue team introduction to Active Directory and Azure AD securityDiscover PowerShell security measures for attacks that go deeper than simple commandsExplore JEA to restrict what commands can be executedWho this book is forThis book is for security professionals, penetration testers, system administrators, and red and blue teams looking to learn how to leverage PowerShell for security operations. A basic understanding of PowerShell, cybersecurity fundamentals, and scripting is a must. For some parts a basic understanding of active directory, C++/C#, and assembly can be beneficial.

Miriam C. Wiesner is a senior security researcher at Microsoft, with over 15 years of experience in IT and IT security. She has held various positions, including administrator/system engineer, software developer, premier field engineer, program manager, security consultant, and pentester.She is also a renowned creator of open source tools based in PowerShell, including EventList and JEAnalyzer. She has been invited multiple times to present the research behind her tools at many international conferences, such as Black Hat (the US, Europe, and Asia), PSConfEU, and MITRE ATT&CK workshop. Outside of work, Miriam is a dedicated wife and mother, residing with her family near Nuremberg, Germany.