Building a slide deck, pitch, or presentation? Here are the big takeaways:

  • A new security pack from Microsoft allows for quick importing of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre guidance settings, saving admins from entering it manually.
  • Microsoft’s new security pack for Windows 10 offers setting guidance on passwords, staff profiles, antivirus programs, and app restrictions.

A new security pack from Microsoft will save Windows 10 admins in the UK “weeks of cyber security work” in consistently deploying the proper guidelines within their organization, according to a Friday Microsoft press release.

The pack was developed in partnership with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), according to the release. The goal is to help businesses protect their critical services from attacks, and the pack can help companies meet government security guidelines “in seconds,” the release said.

The pack is deployed through Microsoft Intune, a popular platform for managing mobile devices and applications, available on Microsoft Azure, the release said. Users simply download the pack and import the settings into Intune to deploy them consistently.

SEE: System update policy (Tech Pro Research)

“The use of the pack allows an IT professional to import all of the guidance settings rather than having to manually enter them, in a move that would normally take days,” the release said. “This also ensures that the settings are applied consistently and reduces errors.”

As noted in the release, the pack was created in direct response to an NCSC conference in Manchester where Amber Rudd, secretary of state for the Home Department, spoke on how businesses must protect themselves online.

“In the same way that shops protect themselves from burglary with locks, alarms and security guards, I expect businesses to take equivalent precautions digitally,” Rudd said at the time. She later noted that, while breaches occur in different capacities, “some breaches leave companies on their knees.”

The pack sets up Windows 10 to follow the NCSC’s 12 End User Device Security Principles. It performs activities such as enabling Windows SmartScreen, restricting software that hasn’t been vetted, and protecting against credential theft.

While the release didn’t specifically mention the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), one could infer that GDPR is at least part of the guidelines that this will help companies meet. The release noted that the pack includes settings relative to passwords, staff profiles, antivirus programs, app restrictions, and more.