Pre- and Post-Production Auditing All production servers should undergo regular security audits to ensure compliance with security policies and regulatory mandates. Pre- and post-production audits validate that a server is configured to specifications, eliminating possible security holes and missing hotfixes or patches. All servers should undergo pre-production audits whereas the frequency of production audits depends on business and regulatory requirements. The following sections will introduce system auditing using Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) and Nmap. We will walk through how to execute a scan against a Terminal Server then analyze and compare the results against security policies. Although there are countless commercial and Open Source auditing and scanning solutions, I selected Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and Nmap because of their performance, price (they are both free) and widespread industry adoption. The next section will introduce Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and follow with an example scan. Microsoft Baseline Security AnalyzerMicrosoft Baseline Security Analyzer is part of the Microsoft trustworthy computing initiative. It is a tool to help determine the security posture of Windows servers and many other Microsoft products. The results from a Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer scan include Microsoft's security recommendations and presents detailed remediation steps. Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is built on the Windows Update Agent and Microsoft Update infrastructure and supports Windows NT 4.0 SP4 or above, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, IIS 4.0 or above, SQL 7.0 and above, and Office 2000 and above. To run the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer, you must have local administrator rights to the computer you w