Recovery for active directory
Author: t | 2025-04-24
Active Directory Change Monitoring; Active Directory Forest Recovery; Active Directory Group Management; Active Directory Recovery; Active Directory Reporting; Active Directory Threat Active Directory Forest Recovery; Active Directory Group Management; Active Directory Recovery; Active Directory Reporting; Active Directory Threat Detection; Active Directory User
Active Directory Forest (Disaster) Recovery – Active Directory –
Sometimes success in life depends on little things that seem easy. So easy that they are often overlooked or underestimated for some reason. This also applies to life in IT. For example, just think about this simple question: "Do you have a tested and documented Active Directory disaster recovery plan?”This is a question we, as Microsoft Global Compromise Recovery Security Practice, ask our customers whenever we engage in a Compromise Recovery project. The aim of these projects is to evict the attacker from compromised environments by revoking their access, thereby restoring confidence in these environments for our customers. More information can be found here: CRSP: The emergency team fighting cyber attacks beside customers - Microsoft Security BlogNine out of ten times the customer replies: "Sure, we have a backup of our Active Directory!”, but when we dig a little deeper, we often find that while Active Directory is backed up daily, an up-to-date, documented, and regularly tested recovery procedure does not exist. Sometimes people answer and say: "Well, Microsoft provides instructions on how to restore Active Directory somewhere on docs.microsoft.com: so, if anything happens that breaks our entire directory, we can always refer to that article and work our way through. Easy!". To this we say, an Active Directory recovery can be painful/time-consuming and is often not easy.You might think that the likelihood of needing a full Active Directory recovery is small. Today, however, the risk of a cyberattack against your Active Directory is higher than ever, hence the chances of you needing to restore it have increased. We now even see ransomware encrypting Domain Controllers, the servers that Active Directory runs on. All this means that you must ensure readiness for this event.Readiness can be achieved by testing your recovery process in an isolated network on a regular basis, just to make sure everything works as expected, while allowing your team to practice and verify all the steps required to perform a full Active Directory recovery. Consider the security aspects of the backup itself, as it is crucial to store backups safely, preferably encrypted, restricting access to only trusted administrative accounts and no one else!You must have a secure, reliable, and fast restoration procedure, ready to use when you most need it.Azure Recovery Services Vault can be an absolute game changer for meeting all these requirements, and we often use it during our Compromise Recovery projects, which is why we are sharing it with you here. Note that the intention here is not to write up a full Business Continuity Plan. Our aim is to help you get started and to show you how you can leverage the power of Azure.The process described here can also be used to Active Directory Change Monitoring; Active Directory Forest Recovery; Active Directory Group Management; Active Directory Recovery; Active Directory Reporting; Active Directory Threat Active Directory Forest Recovery; Active Directory Group Management; Active Directory Recovery; Active Directory Reporting; Active Directory Threat Detection; Active Directory User With a new or vastly larger remote workforce on your hands, mistakes in Azure Active Directory can be more frequent and, frankly, a little inevitable. And it's critical that you can recover from such mistakes to ensure continued user productivity. But those cloud-only objects Azure Active Directory creates are not covered by your enterprise backup and recovery tools. Moreover, the native option-- undeleting cloud objects from the Azure Active Directory recycle bin-- is sorely limited. Here's a concise list of critical configurations that can't be restored natively-- Multi-factor authentication settings, security groups, devices, service principles, and conditional access policies. As a result, you're left with a critical gap in your enterprise data recovery strategy. With Quest On Demand recovery, you can quickly and securely backup and recover Azure Active Directory and Office 365 to help eliminate downtime. You can run difference reports that compare your backups with live Azure Active Directory data. You can pinpoint specific changes or deletions. And then, you can granularly search and restore exactly what you need, everything from individual attributes to multiple users, groups, and group memberships in bulk. Learn more about the gaps in Azure Active Directory recovery and how Quest On Demand recovery can help your remote workforce by visiting quest.com/microsoft-remote-workforce-solutions.Comments
Sometimes success in life depends on little things that seem easy. So easy that they are often overlooked or underestimated for some reason. This also applies to life in IT. For example, just think about this simple question: "Do you have a tested and documented Active Directory disaster recovery plan?”This is a question we, as Microsoft Global Compromise Recovery Security Practice, ask our customers whenever we engage in a Compromise Recovery project. The aim of these projects is to evict the attacker from compromised environments by revoking their access, thereby restoring confidence in these environments for our customers. More information can be found here: CRSP: The emergency team fighting cyber attacks beside customers - Microsoft Security BlogNine out of ten times the customer replies: "Sure, we have a backup of our Active Directory!”, but when we dig a little deeper, we often find that while Active Directory is backed up daily, an up-to-date, documented, and regularly tested recovery procedure does not exist. Sometimes people answer and say: "Well, Microsoft provides instructions on how to restore Active Directory somewhere on docs.microsoft.com: so, if anything happens that breaks our entire directory, we can always refer to that article and work our way through. Easy!". To this we say, an Active Directory recovery can be painful/time-consuming and is often not easy.You might think that the likelihood of needing a full Active Directory recovery is small. Today, however, the risk of a cyberattack against your Active Directory is higher than ever, hence the chances of you needing to restore it have increased. We now even see ransomware encrypting Domain Controllers, the servers that Active Directory runs on. All this means that you must ensure readiness for this event.Readiness can be achieved by testing your recovery process in an isolated network on a regular basis, just to make sure everything works as expected, while allowing your team to practice and verify all the steps required to perform a full Active Directory recovery. Consider the security aspects of the backup itself, as it is crucial to store backups safely, preferably encrypted, restricting access to only trusted administrative accounts and no one else!You must have a secure, reliable, and fast restoration procedure, ready to use when you most need it.Azure Recovery Services Vault can be an absolute game changer for meeting all these requirements, and we often use it during our Compromise Recovery projects, which is why we are sharing it with you here. Note that the intention here is not to write up a full Business Continuity Plan. Our aim is to help you get started and to show you how you can leverage the power of Azure.The process described here can also be used to
2025-04-10With a new or vastly larger remote workforce on your hands, mistakes in Azure Active Directory can be more frequent and, frankly, a little inevitable. And it's critical that you can recover from such mistakes to ensure continued user productivity. But those cloud-only objects Azure Active Directory creates are not covered by your enterprise backup and recovery tools. Moreover, the native option-- undeleting cloud objects from the Azure Active Directory recycle bin-- is sorely limited. Here's a concise list of critical configurations that can't be restored natively-- Multi-factor authentication settings, security groups, devices, service principles, and conditional access policies. As a result, you're left with a critical gap in your enterprise data recovery strategy. With Quest On Demand recovery, you can quickly and securely backup and recover Azure Active Directory and Office 365 to help eliminate downtime. You can run difference reports that compare your backups with live Azure Active Directory data. You can pinpoint specific changes or deletions. And then, you can granularly search and restore exactly what you need, everything from individual attributes to multiple users, groups, and group memberships in bulk. Learn more about the gaps in Azure Active Directory recovery and how Quest On Demand recovery can help your remote workforce by visiting quest.com/microsoft-remote-workforce-solutions.
2025-04-01Entries Security Identifier (SID) Appendix Glossary WinFS File System WinFS Overview Why WinFS? WinFS Architecture WinFS Technology WinFS Types and Extensibility WinFS Synchronization WinFS for Developers WinFS Availability FAT File System FAT File Systems. FAT32, FAT16, FAT12 FAT Partition Boot Sector File Allocation System FAT Root Folder FAT Folder Structure Filenames on FAT Volumes FAT32 Features Boot Sector and Bootstrap Modifications FAT Mirroring FAT32 Partition Types ReFS File System ReFS Overview ReFS Features ReFS prevents data corruption ReFS Architecture ReFS File System structure Block cloning on ReFS Integrity streams ReFS Benefits Differences between the ReFS and NTFS ReFS disadvantages ReFS can be faster How to use ReFS Performance Enabling ReFS using the registry ReFS Boot Sector example Resume HFS+ File System HFS+ Overview HFS+ versus HFS Volume Structure ApFS File System ApFS Overview What's new in ApFS? Comparing ApFS and HFS ApFS Structure Recovery Methodologies Benefits of ApFS Summary exFAT ExFAT overview exFAT vs. FAT32 Comparison Volume Layout Boot Sector Extended Boot Sector OEM Parameters OEM Parameter Record exFAT Boot Checksum File Allocation Table (FAT) Allocation Bitmap Up-case Table Directory Structure Up-Case Table Directory Entry Volume Label Directory Entry File Directory Entry Volume GUID Directory Entry TexFAT Padding Directory Entry File Name Directory Entry Timestamp Format Windows Storage Spaces Overview Resiliency Limitations Storage Spaces in Clusters How to set up For PowerShell lovers Performance Pros & cons Optimal use and tips LSoft Data Recovery Products Active@ Data Studio - 12 Disk Tools Data Recovery, Data Backup & Data Security Toolset. Includes Active@ Boot Disk to boot up unbootable PC from DVD or USB drive. Includes Active@ KillDisk for DoD compliant disk sanitation. Recovers file systems: Microsoft NTFS, FAT, exFAT, ReFS; Apple HFS+; Linux Ext2/Ext3/Ext4, BtrFS; Unix JFS, UFS, XFS Learn more Active@ Boot Disk for unbootable PC It's a bootable CD/DVD/USB disk that allows you to boot up any computer and fix most startup and PC configuration problems. Full access to non-bootable PC Image-based physical or logical disks backup and restore. Lost folders and files recovery. Create, delete, format partitions on SSD/IDE/ATA/SATA/SCSI hard disk drives Deleted partition recovery by editing partition table. Windows administrator's password and user's account resetting. DoD-compliant disk erasing and wiping of free space on the PC disks. Learn more NTFS Data Recovery Toolkit A set of tools for analyzing problems with NTFS partitions and files, and Data Recovering in Manual and Automated modes. Learn more Active@
2025-04-10What is Azure Backup? – Azure Backup | Microsoft DocsIsolated Restore Virtual NetworkAnother thing we need is an isolated network portion (the “isolatedSub” in the drawing) to which we restore the DC. This isolated network portion should be in a separate Resource Group from your production resources, along with the newly created Recovery Services Vault.Isolation means no network connectivity whatsoever to your production networks! If you inadvertently allow a restored Domain Controller, the target of your forest recovery Active Directory cleanup actions, to replicate with your running production Active Directory, this will have a serious impact on your entire IT Infrastructure. Isolation can be achieved by not implementing any peering, and of course by avoiding any other connectivity solutions such as VPN Gateways. Involve your networking team to ensure that this point is correctly covered.Bastion Host in Isolated Virtual NetworkThe last thing we need is the ability to use a secure remote connection to the restored virtual machine that is the first domain controller of the restore Active Directory. To get around the isolation of the restoration VNET, we are going to use Bastion Host for accessing this machine.Azure Bastion is a fully managed Platform as a Service that provides secure and seamless secure connection (RDP and SSH) access to your virtual machines directly through the Azure Portal and avoids public Internet exposure using SSH and RDP with private IP addresses only.Azure Bastion | Microsoft DocsThe ProcessBefore Azure Recovery Vault existed, the first steps of an Active Directory recovery were the most painful part of process: one had to worry about provisioning a correctly sized- and configured recovery machine, transporting the WindowsImageBackup folder to a disk on this machine, and booting from the right Operating System ISO to perform a machine recovery. Now we can bypass all these pain points with just a few clicks:Perform the Virtual Machine BackupCreating a backup of your virtual machine in the Recovery Vault involves including it in a Backup Policy. This is described here:Azure Instant Restore Capability - Azure Backup | Microsoft DocsRestore the Virtual Machine to your isolated Virtual NetworkTo restore your virtual machine, you use the Restore option in Backup Center, with the option to create a new virtual machine. This is described here:Restore VMs by using the Azure portal - Azure Backup | Microsoft DocsActive Directory Recovery ProcessOnce you have performed the restoration of your Domain Controller virtual machine to the isolated Virtual Network, you can log on to this machine using the Bastion Host, which allows you to start performing the Active Directory recovery as per our classic guidance.You login using the built-in administrator account, followed by the steps outlined in the drawing below under “Start of Recovery in isolated
2025-04-14