Windows Security Internals

11 ACTIVE DIRECTORY

The previous chapter described the authentication configuration of a local domain. In this chapter, we’ll detail how Active Directory stores user and group configurations on an enterprise network domain. We’ll begin by inspecting the domain configuration, using various PowerShell commands that can enumerate the configured trust relationships, users, and groups. We’ll then dig into the structure of Active Directory and how you can access its raw information over the network.

Once you understand how Active Directory is structured, we’ll explore how Windows determines who can inspect and modify it. As you’ll see, like most ...