Using Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to block unnecessary traffic

I encounter far too many networks with policies in place that disable the built-in Windows Firewall with Advanced Security (WFAS) by default on all of their machines. Usually, if I ask about this, the reason is either unknown or "It's always been that way." I think this is a carry-over from the Windows XP/Server 2003 days, or maybe even older, when the Windows Firewall was less than desirable. Believe me when I tell you that WFAS in today's operating systems is very advanced, stable, and beneficial. If you want to stop unnecessary or malicious traffic from getting to your server, look no further than this built-in tool.

Getting ready

We are going to use two Windows Server 2016 machines for this task. We will test connectivity between the two to set our baseline and then create a rule that blocks the functions we just tested. Next, we will test again to ensure that our changes did what we expected them to, blocking the...