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They could change settings to make access easier for them or just more annoying for your employees. Someone with PowerShell access has an incredible wealth of options of what to do within your network. Giving the wrong person PowerShell access, and they could wreak all sorts of havoc. I think you can see where this is going…? Why is PowerShell so attractive to cybercriminals? It is both powerful and efficient, and designed from the ground-up specifically for system administrators. It gives users and access a more direct line to make changes to the operating system and control the software. PowerShell is now freely available on the internet so that other users can make changes to it (i.e., it’s now open source). Originally just Windows-specific, it’s since become available for use on other operating systems (like MacOS and Linux). PowerShell is the modern iteration of the Windows command prompt. Learn how Office Protect helps keep your Microsoft 365 tenants safe with our e-bookįor example, if you happened to know the IP address of another computer on your local network, and had remote administrator access, you could enter a command on your machine via command prompt to shut down their machine remotely (definitely not a good way to make friends in the workplace). This can save time and allow you to do “extra” things that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. In here, you can perform tasks directly through the operating system’s command line interface instead of going through the more user-friendly GUI-based menu. It looks like a black box with a C: prompt. Some of you may be familiar with the command prompt tool on your machine, from either using it or just seeing it pop up sometimes after start up. So what does that mean? Let’s break it down. It was initially a Windows-only tool, but is now both open source and cross platform. It’s a task based command-line scripting language that helps admins and users automate the tasks that manage operating systems and processes.
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Using PowerShell scripting gives you enormous control over your machine and services. However, if you’re an admin, a more tech savvy user, or a nefarious individual who wants to hack into other people’s systems, PowerShell scripting can be a powerful office tool. If you are an average computer user, it’s likely you’ve never even heard of PowerShell.
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