By IT Brew Staff
less than 3 min read
Definition:
A database and set of directory services that run on Windows domain networks, Active Directory was first introduced by Microsoft in 1999 and acts as a kind of digital Rolodex. It contains data on all users and machines, such as their title, location, permissions, and passwords, and handles the verification, authentication, and subsequent access of those users.
The one directory to rule them all
Active Directory allows admins to control what various users have access to based on their position in a company. For example, users classified as an employee will have different settings and access compared to someone with an administrator label. Active Directory comes in handy when it is time to onboard a new employee or reset a forgotten password. Active Directory also greatly simplifies user group management.
Mischief, mismanaged
Active Directory is notorious in cybersecurity due to how often administrators tend to misconfigure it, and how serious the resulting vulnerabilities can be. Since Active Directory acts as a who’s who of allowances on a network and can act as a master key if compromised, it tends to be one of the biggest targets for hackers attacking enterprises. The system admin tool, often compared to a phonebook, was one of the most targeted attack surface for ransomware in 2024.
