Protecting services with surface Area configuration tools
CISSP Company: Kevin Beaver
In SQL Server 2005, you can manually configure to balance the relationship between security and functionality. However, if you want to make sure that you have covered all the security infrastructure and just want to activate the services you absolutely need (and minimize the "surface" attack), Microsoft makes this work simpler for you. I'm talking about the SQL Server Surface Zone Configuration tool, which is built on the SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server version of Express.
You can access the surface Area configuration via the Start/program/Microsoft SQL Server 2005/Configuration tool, or simply click on the surface Area Configuration Tool link (during the installation process, in the final installation window shown in Figure 1 below).
Figure 1: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 installation
Once you've started this tool, you have two major configuration options, as shown in Figure 2 below:
1. Surface Area Configuration for services and connections.
2. Surface Area Configuration for the feature.
Figure 2:sql Server 2005 Surface Zone configuration
You have made the following changes on the local machine or on the remote system, and if your default setting is not to allow network connectivity, then the process is not as intuitive as it seems. The default is the local host, but you can select a remote system by using the link shown in Figure 3 (changing the computer).