The content was highly relevant, well-structured, and immediately applicable to real-world enterprise environments. I especially appreciated the strong focus on best practices, real attack scenarios, and effective defensive strategies. The course significantly improved my understanding of securing Windows infrastructure at an advanced level. I would highly recommend this training to anyone responsible for Windows security or infrastructure protection.

Windows infrastructure security was an excellent deep dive into securing enterprise environments. It covered key areas like Windows security, Active Directory protection, the tiering model, and baseline configurations. The explanations were clear, practical, and easy to apply. I now feel more confident in implementing strong security measures across IT infrastructure. Highly recommended

It was a very comprehensive and rich course on Active Directory security. I believe you did a great job, David.

I would like to express my appreciation for the Windows Infrastructure Security course. The content was well-structured and highly relevant to modern enterprise environments. The sections I found particularly insightful and beneficial were: 1- Active Directory Tiering Model: Provided a clear understanding of privilege separation and how to implement a secure administrative structure. 2- Attack Paths: Helped in identifying common AD exploitation techniques and how to proactively mitigate them. 3- Secrets Location: Explained where sensitive credentials and tokens reside, which is critical for reducing exposure. 4- Credential Guards: Offered practical defenses for protecting credentials from theft and misuse. These topics gave me practical tools and approaches to better secure Active Directory in real-world environments. I now have a clearer strategy for reducing lateral movement risks and implementing tiered administrative controls effectively. I highly recommend this course to system administrators and IT professionals responsible for managing or securing Windows infrastructure.

I would like to thank David for his availability and for the truly well-done course. It gave me the opportunity to acquire solid skills in infrastructure security and the processes behind securing an infrastructure. Thank you, David!

If you're on the blue side defending Windows systems, this course will help you a lot, whether you're a newcomer or a seasoned defender looking for a refresher. It contains a high level overview of several important topics that will help you better defend your systems.

Thank you for your sharing, it was a wonderful learning experience. I’m sure this knowledge will help in securing companies and critical sectors against malicious actors.

As an aspiring Security Engineer, I highly recommend the Infrastructure Security course by Horizon Secured ,especially for anyone on the Blue Team side looking to strengthen their foundational knowledge. While the course doesn’t include hands-on labs, the video lessons and demos are extremely practical and well-explained. The instructor does a great job walking through real-world attack and defense techniques. What I found most valuable is how the course explains the "why" behind the techniques. Even without labs, the demos make it easy to understand how these attacks work and how to defend against them ,which is essential for anyone looking to move into Security Engineering or Defensive roles.

The Active Directory - Authentication course is well-structured, with clear explanations and practical examples that make it easier to understand the concepts. An excellent option for those looking to deepen their knowledge of authentication and access control in AD.

As an IT Technician who recently joined the industry and is studying cybersecurity to become a Red Team Penetration tester, I found this course extremely valuable. Through this course, I learned a lot about Windows Security, Active Directory Security, and Infrastructure Security, including system protection, remote access, Windows Firewall, event logs, Active Directory authentication, GPOs, vulnerabilities, attack paths, and more. This course helped me build a strong foundation and improved my knowledge step by step. As someone new to the industry, it made a big difference for me. The teaching style is simple and easy to understand, even for people who don't have deep IT knowledge. I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to strengthen their skills in Windows Infrastructure Security. Pasindu Bodhika Sumanarathna, IT technician, Informatics International Limited.

I really enjoyed this course - it provides a deeper dive into Windows System and Infrastructure Security. The instructor does an excellent job of breaking down complex concepts and offering practical insights, all backed by real-world examples. If you're in IT or Cybersecurity and want to enhance your expertise, this course is worth considering. I recommend it highly.

It was an interesting and very informative course. I will definitely recommend it to people who are involved in Windows system administration/security and want to improve their knowledge.

The course contains a lot of useful material for administrators of domain Windows systems and for cyber security specialists. Also course provides real examples of a lot of useful information that can be used in everyday tasks.

This is a great course that gives a lot of useful information and best practice advices. Instructor has succeded to explain most important aspects of Windows System and Infrastructure Security topics. Thank you David, I found it interesting to take it!

I received this course as a gift and I’m extremely satisfied with it. It’s a strong continuation of the Windows Infrastructure Security course, with a clear focus on practical demo and lab exercises. The course provides a comprehensive and structured overview of how Active Directory works, especially from a security perspective. It’s practical, well-organized, and directly applicable in real-world environments. I highly recommend it to security professionals and system administrators who want a deeper understanding of AD security.

The course was very good. It gave me an overview and, where I needed it, details on how to configure and how security works in Active Directory. I recommend this course not only to those who want a deep understanding of how to set up a secure Active Directory, but also to those who want a general overview of AD security. The only thing I missed was the opportunity to try out certain things in labs. In conclusion, I strongly recommend the course.

Clear Knowledge

Despite my 20+ years of experience with the Windows platform, I found a lot of new and useful information in this course. Thanks David! This is truly amazing!

It was a valuable training that refreshed my knowledge on Active Directory security and was supported with practical examples. I recommend it.

got a lot of information after o through this course.

Great source of information and best practices. Well explained and described. Can recommend

Value content. Thx

I learned a lot

Your Horizon alerts are fantastic! They’re an invaluable source of security-related information for me. The free learning materials are also great. Unfortunately, I can’t afford your full course at the moment, but I’m planning to get it.

The AD DS security course is very thorough and provides a good, comprehensive starting point. The individual configuration elements covered in the course form the foundation of any AD DS deployment with a “security package.” The pre-built GPO policies were particularly useful, as I was able to compare them with my own sets.

A great, easy-to-follow course. It’s missing a section on PAWs. I highly recommend it!!!!

The best Active Directory content i have ever seen, i am Soc Analyst in my country , Dominican Republic. but in the long term i wanna be Cybersecurity Arquitecture, so learning AD in deep is a must. after reviewing several training offers, Horizon Secured Training Sillabus is the best by far i have ever seen. in some months i ll be getting the training. i read the articles every days posted in the Linkedin or X. Very recommended. Best regards

I am very grateful to David for the work he has done. It is an excellent course, and I often revisit it to refresh my knowledge or clarify specific points. I would like to highlight the sections of the course dedicated to GPOs and AppLocker; they frequently help me in my work. I also often recommend David's Horizon Academy to friends and colleagues who want to improve their knowledge of Active Directory.

I've been actively taking both the free and paid courses, and I make sure to follow every post on LinkedIn. The content is consistently clear, practical, and broken down into simple terms with great screenshots. The Active Directory security insights have added tremendous value to my day-to-day knowledge, and I frequently find myself sharing these posts and takeaways with my colleagues. Highly recommended!

I’ve found Horizon Secured very valuable, particularly because the content is practical and clearly based on real-world Active Directory environments rather than just theory. I work with AD and Windows infrastructure in an enterprise environment, so what I appreciate most is the focus on risks, misconfigurations, attack paths, and security controls that can actually be applied in production . It has helped me look at Active Directory security in a more structured way and, in some cases, question configurations that may be technically functional but not necessarily secure. The materials have also inspired me to take a more structured approach to privileged access and to move toward implementing a tiering model for Active Directory in the organization I work for. They helped me better understand not only the concept itself, but also the reasoning behind separating administrative privileges, systems, and identities based on their level of trust and impact. The biggest value for me is being able to connect the offensive perspective with day-to-day administration. Understanding how an attacker could abuse a configuration makes it much easier to understand why certain hardening recommendations actually matter. I would recommend Horizon Secured to anyone responsible for Active Directory, especially administrators and security engineers who want to go beyond basic best practices and better understand how AD is attacked, assessed, and secured in real environments.

Great overview! Practical examples, real-world scenarios on how to harden AD and it's eco-system. David is really knowledgeable and skillful instructor who explains things clearly and always focuses on the most important points. Definitely recommended!

Davids weekly security bulletins are a god send and his patch tuesday email where he consolidates all patch/security issues is brillant and takes time to test patches and alert of any issues

I completed Horizon Secured's Windows Infrastructure Security course and found it both practical and highly valuable. Even with previous experience in Windows infrastructure and cybersecurity, the course gave me new perspectives on several areas of Windows and Active Directory security. What I found particularly valuable was the combination of defensive concepts with real-world attack techniques. Understanding not only how a security control should be implemented, but also how misconfigurations and weaknesses can actually be identified and abused, makes the content much more useful in practice. The course is well structured, technically detailed, and focused on topics that are directly applicable to real production environments. I would definitely recommend Horizon Secured to Windows administrators, infrastructure engineers, and cybersecurity professionals who want to deepen their understanding of Windows and Active Directory security beyond standard hardening recommendations.

I like the questions on linkedin it keeps me engaged with AD.

What I liked about the course was that it covered absolutely all the important topics, and the information was presented concisely and clearly, without complicated theories, definitions and the like. The demo examples also help to improve understanding of the material covered. I also appreciate that the course is suitable not only for beginners, but also for more experienced professionals, who will find plenty of information here that they didn’t know or had forgotten – just like me :-)

The most valuable part was the combination of technical fundamentals with practical security scenarios. I particularly appreciated the sections on Kerberos and NTLM, AD CS vulnerabilities, attack paths and BloodHound, as well as the tiering model and Privileged Access Workstations. The security baseline section was also very useful because it showed how individual hardening settings can be turned into a consistent security standard enforced across the environment. I now pay even more attention to separating administrative identities and management environments, limiting credential exposure, and looking at how apparently small misconfigurations can be chained together.

Over the past few years, my role has evolved from a Cloud & Systems Engineer into an Infrastructure Architect with a primary focus on security and identity. I’ve also inherited an Active Directory environment that’s approaching 25 years old, supporting tens of thousands of users. One of my biggest goals is not only to improve the security of that environment but also to mentor our up-and-coming Cloud & Systems Administrator so they learn the right way to manage and secure Active Directory from the beginning. I’ve been working with Windows environments for close to 28 years. During that time I’ve managed environments of all sizes and have even been brought in to help clean up after several cyber incidents. While I’ve gained a lot of practical experience, I’ve often felt that I learned how to make things work without always understanding what the “right” or best-practice approach should have been. That’s what attracted me to your training—it focuses on the underlying principles and proper implementation rather than just getting from point A to point B.

As an IT engineer in a global company, I really enjoy working on Active Directory security. Even though I was already familiar with most of the material and regularly use tools like PingCastle and Purple Knight, this course was fantastic. It tied up loose ends, gave me new topics to explore, and gave me real confidence that the security practices I implement at work align with the best in the field. A must-take course for any IT engineer specializing in AD—highly recommended!

Small but pretty straightforward course to identify threats in Active Directory.

I really enjoy your content on Linkedin. When I saw this program I wanted to go deeper. You delivered on that here. I have a much deeper level of understanding AD security now and how to do it right. I would definitely recommend your content to anyone how has to do any serious AD work.

Great course and handy tool to use in your environment.

Awesome work and you're a great teacher. Thanks for the course and the opportunity you have given to some of us. I was struggling to connect the theory with practical, real-world administration tasks, and this course provided exactly the guidance I needed. I initially hesitated because I was unsure whether the course would be suitable for a beginner, but the clear explanations, practical demonstrations, and well-structured lessons made learning much easier than expected. I especially liked the hands-on approach and practical security techniques, which made the lessons useful beyond just passing an exam. I highly recommend this course to beginners, junior sysadmins, and anyone looking to build a strong foundation in Windows Infrastructure Security Administration—the depth and practical value of the course genuinely exceeded my expectations.

A great hands-on course that teaches you how to build your own tool for detecting vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in Active Directory. Practical, technical, and very useful for understanding AD security from a different perspective.

I found this course very useful, especially for professionals working with Windows Server, Active Directory, infrastructure security, and identity management. The content provides a good balance between technical concepts, security best practices, and practical implementation. I particularly appreciated the coverage of Active Directory hardening, Tiering Model, Kerberos security, privileged accounts, Protected Users, password policies, GPO management, gMSA, DNS, Windows Server Core, Sysmon, auditing, firewall configuration, and Security Baselines. One of the strongest aspects of the course is that many topics are directly applicable to real enterprise environments. Rather than focusing only on theory, the course encourages you to think about how configuration decisions affect credential protection, lateral movement, privilege escalation, attack surface, and overall Active Directory security. The quizzes are also helpful for reinforcing key concepts and identifying areas that require further study. As a suggestion for future improvements, I would appreciate even more hands-on enterprise labs, including attack-and-defense scenarios, Active Directory misconfiguration assessments, PowerShell-based auditing, Microsoft Security Baseline implementation, Sysmon/SIEM integration, Kerberos troubleshooting, Tier 0 architecture, and examples mapped to MITRE ATT&CK. Overall, this is a high-quality and practical course that I would recommend to Windows Infrastructure, Active Directory, IAM, and Cybersecurity professionals who want to strengthen both their administration and security skills. Thank you David for creating such practical and relevant content.

I frequently implement tiering models and was curious about this course because it covers the subject. I consider it to be one of the best, if not the very best to address this topic.

The Windows Infrastructure Security course delivers an outstanding balance of structure, depth, and clarity. Each module builds logically on the previous one, making even complex topics easy to follow without oversimplifying them. The technical depth is exactly where it needs to be: practical, relevant, and directly applicable to real‑world AD environments. What I appreciated most is how clearly the instructor explains not just what to do, but why it matters from a security perspective. The examples, attack scenarios, and defensive strategies are all presented with precision and purpose. There is one downside, and it’s the reason I’m giving it 4 stars instead of 5: I was hoping to see the use of tools like Process Explorer (or similar) to help detect conflicts or issues with Security Baselines applied. This is something I’m currently struggling with in my day‑to‑day work, and I enrolled in the course partly hoping to see that workflow covered. Fingers crossed it appears in future content—maybe in BASAD, which seems like the perfect place for it. Overall, despite that missing piece, this course is a must‑have for anyone responsible for securing Windows infrastructure or looking to strengthen their understanding of modern AD security practices.

I took this course because I wanted to improve in an area that has traditionally been a weak spot for me. The biggest thing that almost stopped me from purchasing was the out-of-pocket cost, but a recent promotion made it an easy decision since I was also able to pick up the BASAD course. What I appreciated most was the combination of hands-on demonstrations and comprehensive learning materials. The practical approach made it much easier to understand the concepts and apply them in real-world scenarios. I would recommend this course to anyone who works with Active Directory, especially Systems Administrators and Security professionals looking to strengthen their knowledge and skills.

I was impressed by the course's structure and the topics covered. I definitely recommend this course to any Active Directory administrator who takes IT security seriously.

I've been in the IT industry for close to 20 years and my career was built on supporting Windows infrastructure. I decided to purchase this course because my focus has shifted away from Windows over the last 6 years and I wanted a refresher and to see what has changed since I last touched AD. This course was fantastic and the author really knows their stuff! I was impressed and went through the material over 3-4 days and plan on rewatching a few times.

This course provides a solid and practical understanding of Active Directory security. The content is well-structured and focuses on real-world implementation rather than just theory. It’s especially useful for AD administrators looking to strengthen their security knowledge.

nice

Thank you for your effort!

Interesting content.

End of module, thanks David!

The course was very insightful for me. Although at the beginning I thought that I wouldn’t learn anything new, by the end I was glad that I had gone through the whole thing and learned quite a lot of new things. I will definitely use them in practice and I’m already looking forward to the next contributions.

I’m a cybersecurity professional, and honestly, following David’s lessons through Horizon Secured has helped me stay at a higher level. Each session brings new insights, with a strong focus on keeping organizations secure by mastering the fundamentals, something clearly reflected in the quality of the training.

Overall, I had positive experience and found the course valuable. I would appreciate a bit more depth on PAWs, a quick command summary per module, and feedback on incorrect answers in the final test.

The course provides a condensed overview of key concepts from Windows Infrastructure Security and Building a Secure Active Directory, focusing on threat detection through proper logging and auditing in Active Directory environments. Its main value lies in the practical application through a script used to analyze AD infrastructures and quickly assess security configurations in real-world enterprise environments.

The course was very beneficial; I was exposed to real world scenarios. David provide valuable information that I can apply in my own environment.