I would be interesting in reading those as we would like to set that up
here.. get a little worried with the CEO having Domain Admin rights.

 

_____________________________

Cameron Cooper

IT Director - CompTIA A+ Certified

Aurico Reports, Inc

Phone: 847-890-4021    Fax: 847-255-1896

ccoo...@aurico.com

 

From: Sherry Abercrombie [mailto:saber...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 9:18 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: UAC--argh...

 

Ewwww, that has been a no-no for best security practices for years.  I'm
sure if you dig around long enough you could come up with documentation
from MS to support that.  I may have some references for you, but I'll
have to dig around for them ;)

On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 9:09 AM, David Lum <david....@nwea.org> wrote:

I'm the wrong dude to ask, our admins here are domain admins on their
day-to-day accounts (I am the only one who doesn't do that, but I have
had no luck convincing anyone else to follow suit).  I do log into some
of my servers (DC's) with my domain admin account, other servers I use
my daily use account.

 

Dave

 

From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:mille...@mukilteo.wednet.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 5:05 AM


To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: UAC--argh...

 

Dave-do your people who log onto servers log on with limited accounts
there as well?  If so, how many people are we talking about?  We are a
pretty small group and we have limited accounts for workstation/daily
activities usage, but when connecting to a server, an admin account is
generally used.

 

From: David Lum [mailto:david....@nwea.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 2:02 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: UAC--argh...

 

I think the only time an admin account would be used would be
specifically to install software - I'm thinking kind of like changing a
Citrix server to install mode where you only invoke that mode to install
stuff. And hopefully the thumb drive gets scanned before a file is
opened or moved from it.

 

Put another way, you don't use the machine logged in as a local admin,
you use it as a regular user and make UAC ask for admin credentials to
install something.

David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER 
NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION
(Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764

 

 

 

From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:mille...@mukilteo.wednet.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 1:40 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: UAC--argh...

 

LOL-that happens a LOT in the school applications world with permissions
in general-"it needs to be administrator".

 

So question on disabling AAM-Wouldn't that defeat the "malware
protection" component of UAC, assuming an admin account was somehow used
run the malware without that admin user's knowledge?  I'm going with
logging onto a server as an admin.  For example, admin user logs onto a
server and sticks a thumb drive in to copy a file over.  Somehow there
is malware that got on the thumbdrive.  Assuming nothing else catches it
(AV, etc), would disabling AAM allow it to run without consent?

 

 

From: David Lum [mailto:david....@nwea.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 1:21 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: UAC--argh...

 

+1 on keeping UAC on. Disabling AAM is sufficient to remove the
annoyances, UAC has real benefits.

 

My opinion concurs with Ben's. Just last week I was working with a
vendor who claimed their application required Vista's User Access
Control (UAC) needed to be turned off for the application to work. This
was a VENDOR telling me about their product! Yet amazingly I figured out
how to make it work with UAC....needless to say, they have since updated
their documentation.

 

Dave

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Scott [mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:30 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: UAC--argh...

 

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Miller Bonnie

L.<mille...@mukilteo.wednet.edu> wrote:

> So, I've been trying REALLY hard to just get used to UAC with WS08 ...

 

  The following is my opinion and analysis.  It differs significantly

from the Microsoft party line.

 

  Disable admin approval mode (AAM) for all administrators.    Keep UAC
enabled.

 

  AAM is just a lot of smoke and mirrors.  The right way to do things

is to run as a "limited user" except when needed, and have a separate

admin account for admin stuff.  If you do that, you don't need AAM.

Indeed, AAM makes things *worse*, because admins get so used to

clicking dozens of prompts that they'll miss important prompts.

 

  However, Microsoft created a culture that expects to have admin

rights.  That includes many users, many programmers, many end-user

customers, many of Microsoft's customers, and many ISVs.  Simply

saying "don't run as admin" wasn't working.  I don't think it's likely

that changing OOBE (out-of-box experience) to create separate accounts

would help, either.  People (or software) would just use the admin

account for everything.

 

  So AAM was created.  AAM is basically an attempt at letting a user

have admin rights but not actually running with admin rights.  The end

result may or may not do anything to help lusers who insist on having

admin rights all the time, but it just gets in the way of IT

professionals who have been using separate admin accounts for years.

 

  I recommend keeping UAC enabled because it does have other benefits.

Filesystem and registry virtualization needs UAC to work, and FS&R

virtualization is (in my experience) the *only* actual improvement in

Vista.  UAC also lets Windows prompt for alternate credentials when an

unprivileged user attempts a privileged operation.  Thus an admin can

provide privileged credentials when needed, without a full-blown

separate logon.

 

  The above is my opinion and analysis.  It differs significantly from

the Microsoft party line.

 

-- Ben

 

~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~

~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




-- 
Sherry Abercrombie

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." 
Arthur C. Clarke

 

 

~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

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