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8 Guides

Windows ADCS

Active Directory Certificate Services guides. Architecture, templates, autoenrollment, NDES, and security hardening.

Windows ADCS - Guide Series
What is ADCS?
Windows ADCS

What is ADCS?

Active Directory Certificate Services explained. When to use private CA vs public CA for enterprise PKI.

8 min
ADCS Architecture
Windows ADCS

ADCS Architecture

Two-tier PKI hierarchy with offline Root CA and online Issuing CA. Enterprise vs Standalone CA explained.

10 min
Certificate Templates
Windows ADCS

Certificate Templates

ADCS templates for User, Computer, Web Server certificates. Permissions, versioning, and common mistakes.

12 min
Autoenrollment
Windows ADCS

Autoenrollment

Configure GPO-based certificate autoenrollment. Troubleshooting flowchart and testing commands.

12 min
NDES (SCEP for Windows)
Windows ADCS

NDES (SCEP for Windows)

Network Device Enrollment Service for Cisco, Intune, and devices that cannot join Active Directory.

12 min
ADCS Security (ESC Attacks)
Windows ADCS

ADCS Security (ESC Attacks)

ESC1-ESC8 privilege escalation attacks from SpecterOps research. Detection and hardening checklist.

15 min
Template Permissions Deep Dive
Windows ADCS

Template Permissions Deep Dive

Master ADCS template permissions. Enroll vs Autoenroll, inheritance, effective permissions, and common misconfigurations.

15 min
ADCS Naming Conventions
Windows ADCS

ADCS Naming Conventions

Get ADCS naming right the first time. CA hierarchy names, certificate template naming, subject fields, CRL/AIA URLs, and AD object names.

12 min