Page 30 - FCW, July 2017

IT MANDATE
MATSTER THE WINDOWS 10 MIGRATION
Migrating to new hardware at the same time as Windows 10 can help ease the migration process.
HERE IS A RENEWED FOCUS on integrated However, the shift to Windows 10 hasn’t been a simple one security with Windows 10 that is closely tied to the for many organizations. There’s still a significant population security enhancements hardware manufacturers of Windows XP systems throughout government, for example, have built into the new generations of PC systems. despite support having ended for XP some time ago. Likewise, While many of the new features in Windows 10 will older hardware won’t be able to take advantage of the major
operate on older PCs, migrating to a complementary hardware security enhancements built into Windows 10. For that and other
platform at the same time as the new OS is recommended to ease the migration process.
That’s a big deal, particularly for government organizations hit hard by security breaches over the past couple of years. They’re now in a race to shore up their defenses to counter a multitude of threats from nation state actors and organized criminals who are using increasingly sophisticated malware to access sensitive data and disrupt government services.
The security boost promised by this OS-hardware connection has already made some influential converts. In a February 2016 memo, for example, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work mandat- ed a department-wide move to Windows 10. This is an unprece- dented shift by the DOD to a single operating system. DOD chief information officer at the time, Terry Halvorsen, says the move “will improve our cybersecurity posture by establishing a common baseline,” while also helping to lower the cost of IT at the DOD.
Stanislaw Mikulski / ymgerman / charnsitr / Shutterstock.com
reasons, agencies will likely need support with their migrations. Migration gets increasingly complicated depending on the
hardware agencies are using, says Jonathan Boateng, a Microsoft technology solutions professional. If agencies are moving from Windows 7 to Windows 10, agencies can simplify the migration process by simultaneously transitioning their hardware to
newer generations that already have all the hardware security enhancements.
“If they are on a system that is still using the traditional BIOS (binary input/output system) and they want to leverage all of the current security enhancements in Windows 10, one of the requirements is also using UEFI (unified extensible firmware interface) instead of BIOS,” and there is some backend configuration needed to do that, he says.
UEFI was first introduced in Windows 7. It works with Windows to ensure both the hardware and basic elements of the operating system haven’t been tampered with or infected by malware before the system boots.
Another key reason agencies may ask for support, says Boateng, is because of a change in the servicing model for Windows 10. Users of Windows XP through Windows 7 will be familiar with a five year cadence for the release of new operating system features. New capabilities for Windows 10 will be released much more rapidly—twice a year.“We are basically compressing what would happen previously in a 3-5 year timeframe into just one year,” he says.
Some Windows 10 security features will be familiar to long-time Windows users. Device Guard, which has been in place since Windows XP, helps determine which scripts and applications can run on certain computers. Credential Guard, on the other hand, is a new feature to protect against attacks aimed at stealing network access and derived credentials, which account for a majority of attacks today.
Both of these and other security tools, as well as upcoming tools such as Application Guard, make full use of Windows 10 virtualization-based security (VBS), a new feature that’s central to how Windows 10 provides broad security for users.
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