Active Directory Hardening and Migration Case Study

This case study outlines the approach taken by GeoDataTek Inc. to address the Active Directory (AD) vulnerabilities and compliance risks faced by a leading manufacturing services provider with over 3,000 employees. The study begins with the identification of challenges, including stale accounts, weak security controls, poor Group Policy Object hygiene, and compliance risks against ISO 27001 and PCI DSS audits. The process is divided into three phases: assessment, hardening, and migration. The assessment phase involved conducting an AD health check, a privileged access review, and a baseline security assessment. The hardening phase included the application of Zero Trust policies, domain controller hardening, and GPO cleanup. The migration phase focused on implementing Azure AD Connect and migrating to Microsoft Entra ID. The outcomes delivered significant improvements, including a 95% reduction in stale accounts, achieved AD uptime of 99.9%, and an 80% reduction in audit findings during the following compliance cycle.