14 DAY TRIAL // The final version of the Security Compliance Manager 2.5 is now available for download, enabling fast configuration and management of desktops and servers using Group Policy and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager.
The latest version of the application is 2.5.40.0, and came out only a few days ago to replace the beta flavor released in January. Just like the previous iterations of the utility, the new SCM 2.5 is available as a free software from Microsoft Solution Accelerators team.
Security Compliance Manager 2.5 came with all the features, tools and capabilities needed to manage product baselines from Microsoft or other baselines that can be modified to meet specific requirements within an organization.
The release notes for the new version of SCM show that there are new product baselines aimed at taking full advantage of the security features in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2 and Exchange Server 2007 SP3.
These have been tailored to harden specific server roles for Exchange Server, including Client Access, Mailbox, Hub Transport, Edge Transport, and Unified Messaging.
“New Windows PowerShell-based script kits are included to assist you in applying the Exchange Server baseline settings to the servers in your environment,” Microsoft explains.
Additional details on this can be found in the Exchange Server 2010 SP2 PowerShell Script Kit User Guide and the Exchange Server 2007 SP3 PowerShell Script Kit User Guide in the Attachments / Guides node of these Microsoft product baselines in SCM.
The new version of SCM also brings along IT Governance, Risk, and Compliance (IT GRC) baseline information for a range of Microsoft product baselines.
“These Microsoft baselines include new compliance-based setting groups that allow quicker and easier compliance reporting and audit preparation. SCM is designed to work closely with IT GRC solutions from Microsoft,” the software giant explains.
The new Security Compliance Manager 2.5 weighs 33.9 MB and is available for download from Softpedia via this link.