Applying the latest Windows security baselines (Basic) - A security baseline is a vetted collection of security-focused configuration settings for Windows and other Microsoft products. - Security Center 5.12

A security baseline is a vetted collection of security-focused configuration settings for Windows and other Microsoft products.

To maximize security with increased flexibility and reduced cost, Microsoft recommends deploying an industry-standard security configuration, such as one of their security baselines. For more information about these configurations, refer to Microsoft Security Baselines.

We recommend using the Security Compliance Toolkit (SCT) to deploy the most recent security baseline for your version of Windows. The SCT is a set of tools provided by Microsoft to help deploy security baselines. For more information, refer to Microsoft Security Compliance Toolkit 1.0.

For the security baseline for your Windows edition, visit the Microsoft Security Baselines Blog and search for it there.