Introduction:
PingCastle is a fast and portable Active Directory auditing tool that highlights misconfigurations, outdated practices, and potential attack paths in your AD environment. It generates easy-to-read reports that help you quickly identify what needs to be fixed. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to download, run, and interpret PingCastle results.

---

💾 Step 1: Download PingCastle

• Go to the official site: https://www.pingcastle.com/download/
• Download the latest ZIP file
• Extract the contents to a folder on your local domain-joined machine (no installation required)

---

🖥️ Step 2: Run PingCastle

Open Command Prompt as Administrator, then navigate to the folder where PingCastle was extracted:

cd C:\Tools\PingCastle
PingCastle.exe

You’ll see a menu like this:

1 - Health Check
2 - Collect data to send to an auditor
3 - Analyse a previously collected report
4 - Machine analysis
5 - Risk Assessment
6 - Online mode

---

✅ Step 3: Perform a Health Check

Type 1 and press Enter to run a Health Check on your domain.

• The tool connects to the local domain controller
• It will query AD for policies, permissions, trust relationships, and more
• Takes a couple of minutes depending on the size of the environment

---

📊 Step 4: Review the Report

Once complete, PingCastle will generate an HTML report in the current directory, like:

HealthCheck-YourDomain-2024-04-08-Report.html

Open it in a browser. Key sections include:

• Security Score (0–100): Lower score = more issues
• Top Risk Indicators: High-risk accounts, old protocols, weak delegation
• Domain Trusts: Potential inter-domain attack paths
• GPO Issues: Misconfigured or unlinked policies
• Kerberos Delegation: Flags unconstrained or risky delegation setups

---

⚠️ Common Findings to Watch For

• Unconstrained delegation
• Users with password not required
• Outdated cryptography
• Kerberoastable accounts
• High number of domain admins
• Unpatched domain controllers

---

💡 Optional: Command-Line Automation

You can automate the report like this:

PingCastle.exe --healthcheck --server yourdomain.local --exportdir C:\Reports

---

🛡️ Step 5: Take Action on Recommendations

Each issue comes with a severity rating and suggested mitigation. Prioritize critical issues first, like:

• Removing risky delegation
• Resetting stale privileged accounts
• Disabling weak authentication protocols

---

Conclusion:
PingCastle is an essential tool for any sysadmin or security professional managing Active Directory. It provides a high-level overview of your AD health in minutes and helps you proactively fix vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them.