# Ensure 'Windows Firewall: Private: Logging: Log dropped packets' is set to 'Yes'

Necessity: Enabling the logging of dropped packets is critical for security monitoring and incident response. Dropped packets often represent unauthorized connection attempts, network scans, or other malicious activities. Without a log of these events, administrators and security analysts are blind to potential threats targeting the system. This log provides an essential audit trail for forensic analysis after a security incident and helps in identifying and troubleshooting network reconnaissance activities.

Auditing and Remediation: The audit script verifies the current setting for logging dropped packets on the firewall's Private profile. The remediation script directly configures this setting, enabling or disabling it based on the provided parameter.

Recommended State Rationale: The recommendation for all levels (Basic, Moderate, and Strict) is 'Yes' because this is a foundational security practice. There is no security benefit to disabling this feature. Basic security requires this logging for minimal visibility. Moderate and Strict levels build upon this by assuming this and other logging mechanisms are active to feed into more comprehensive security monitoring systems. Disabling this feature is not recommended under any security hardening standard.

## Recommended State Configuration

| Security Level | Value |
|----------------|-------|
| **Basic** | `['Yes']` |
| **Moderate** | `['Yes']` |
| **Strict** | `['Yes']` |
| **Type** | `ENUM` |

## Audit Script Working

PowerShell script that queries the Windows Defender Firewall's Private profile configuration. The script must execute a command to retrieve the value for 'LogDroppedPackets', parse the output, and return only the current state (e.g., 'Yes' or 'No') without any additional text or labels.

## Remediation Script Working

PowerShell script that accepts a single positional command-line argument (e.g., 'Yes' or 'No'). The script must use this argument to set the 'LogDroppedPackets' configuration for the Windows Defender Firewall's Private profile. The script must return the boolean value $true upon successful application of the setting and $false upon failure.

