How US spooks secure W2K and Cisco routers

US spook site, NSA.gov, has finally re-released its guidelines on securing Windows 2000 and added hints on protecting Cisco routers from hackers.

The files were removed from the site a couple of weeks ago after servers struggled to cope with high demand generated by an industry interested in the US Government's security policies.

Analysts at the time pointed out the irony of getting security advice from a US government that admitted to around 155 serious security breaches on its networks last year.

However, the downloads are back up, including templates, manuals and instructions on how to harden your Windows 2000 systems.

Topics covered by the files include working with policies, Active Directory settings, DNS setup, digital certificates and Kerberos, and the hacker's old favourite, IIS.

As an addition to its security recommendation guides, the NSA has also included similar files for Cisco routers. To help network managers build a secure TCP/IP network, topics covered include access lists and filtering, auditing and management, secure Network Access Services and firewalling.

Putting the policies into practice may be another matter, however, in the light of an April Congress report which found that very few federal agencies had complied with security regulations to check the integrity of their defences, leaving them vulnerable to malicious attacks.

For the more security conscious among us, the files, now housed on a higher-bandwidth server to cope with the demand, can be found here.