System Hardening – Unnecessary Service Disabling for Dummies
by Art Chaisiriwatanasai on Jan.26, 2009, under General
When performing a system based audit (or if you are the one being audited), you will no doubt run into the recommendation of disabling unnecessary Windows services. The problem with this is that there are many services that are started by default, and the Windows built-in explanations don’t make it any easier.
Usually, this audit recommendation is taken with a grain of salt and only the glaringly bad services will actually be disabled (telnet, snmp, etc.). I ran into this site the other day that will help clear all this up:
http://www.devotedgeek.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-tweaking-useless-windows-xp-services/
This site lists each default service one at a time, and explains scenarios for their use. Very helpful for the technical auditor without the high-functioning rainman type autism to remember these types of things.
