Microsoft’s Active Directory Security Feature

Security Features

Delegation Of Control wizard

Administrators must be able to protect their directory from attackers and users, while delegating tasks to other administrators where necessary. This is all possible using the Active Directory security model, which associates an access control list (ACL) with each container, object, and object attribute within the directory.


This high level of control allows an administrator to grant individual users and groups varying levels of permissions for objects and their properties. Administrators can even add attributes to objects and hide those attributes from certain groups of users. Nonmanagers would not even know that the attribute existed.


A concept new to Windows 2000 Server is delegated administration. This allows administrators to assign administrative tasks to other users, while not granting those users more power than necessary. Delegated administration can be assigned over specific objects or contiguous subtrees of a directory. This is a much more effective method of giving authority over the networks; rather than granting someone the all powerful Domain Administrator permissions, he or she can be given permissions for just those systems and users within a specific subtree. Active Directory supports inheritance, so any new objects inherit the ACL of their container.


There is no distinction between one-way and two-way trusts because all Active Directory trusts are bidirectional. Further, all trusts are transitive. So, if Domain A trusts Domain B, and Domain B trusts Domain C, then there is an automatic implicit trust between Domain A and Domain C.

Windows 2000 Server trusts are bidirectional and transitive.

Another Active Directory security feature is auditing. Just as you can audit NTFS partitions, objects and containers within Active Directory can be audited. This is a useful way to determine who is attempting to access objects, and whether or not they succeed.