Microsoft brings back professional tool
Microsoft is more active in security than most users think and also brings useful tools to the market time and again. A few years ago there was the “Microsoft Surface Attack Analyzer” to keep an eye on changes to Windows.
The tool is now available in a completely new version, not just for Windows. We will show you other tools with which you can make your Windows even more secure in this post.
Microsoft always brings useful security tools to the market. The professional tool Attack Surface Analyzer (ASA) already existed in 2012.
This made it possible to track exactly what changes were made to the system programs, for example during installation or during certain actions.
Now Microsoft has completely revised the Attack Surface Analyzer 2, published the source code on GitHub and, incidentally, built versions for Linux and macOS.
DOWNLOAD: MICROSOFT ATTACK SURFACE ANALYZER 2
Attack Surface Analyzer
Microsoft Attack Surface Analyzer 2.1.80
The Microsoft “Attack Surface Analyzer” tool can detect changes to the Windows operating system via snapshot or live monitoring.
Rating: Good – DOWNLOAD
Monitor Windows
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| ASA creates snapshots of Windows that can be compared later. |
A professional tool often means command line. In fact, the Microsoft Surface Attack Analyzer also has a pure command-line version, but using the GUI is more convenient.
You just have to open a command line with admin rights and then start asa.exe GUI, then a graphical user interface opens in the browser window by clicking on “Get Started”.
Now you can do a system scan. There are two modes for this, “Static Scan” and “Live Monitoring”.
The “Static Scan” is perfect for checking the effects of a program installation. To do this, you make a scan, then install the program you want to monitor and then run a second scan.
A comparison is then made from this. With “Live Monitoring” you can monitor the effects of certain actions in real-time.
Set details
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| You can configure which parts of Windows the tool should monitor. |
On request, ASA collects a wide variety of data for each scan. You can specify which ones exactly using checkboxes.
You can choose from changes to files, ports, certificates, user profiles, services and the registry. With “Collect Data” you start the recording, which the tool automatically saves with a time stamp.
In principle, this also applies to Linux and macOS, only that, of course, no specific Windows data such as registry values can be recorded there.
Unfortunately, there is no cancel button, you should let a scan run once.
Microsoft Attack Surface Analyzer is easy to use, but the work requires a lot of knowledge and time because you have to interpret the results appropriately.
After two scans or live monitoring, you can view the results in the “Results” tab. To do this, select the respective scans for comparison.
DOWNLOAD: MICROSOFT ATTACK SURFACE ANALYZER 2
Attack Surface Analyzer
Microsoft Attack Surface Analyzer 2.1.80
The Microsoft “Attack Surface Analyzer” tool can detect changes to the Windows operating system via snapshot or live monitoring.
Rating: Good – DOWNLOAD