There is no doubt that all of the security features in Windows Vista will help keep your computer secure. However, these features become less valuable when they are not turned on by default. One feature, known as user account auditing, is not turned on by default. With this feature is turned off, anyone with physical access or remote access to through a hole in your firewall (such an opening for Remote Desktop) can use a brute force attack against your user account for as long as they want without getting noticed at all. How? The default audit security policy is configured to not log any account logon events, successful or failed.
This allows an attacker to try to hack your accounts for as long as it takes to break in. There are a few ways to protect against this that I am going to go over in my next article about the Account Lockout policy. But first, it is important to turn on this account auditing so that you can see who may be trying to break into your accounts. After you have adjusted the auditing security policy, you will be able to see any account attacks including the account that they tried to logon with and where the request came from. Read More»
Posted in Hardware, Windows Vista, Windows XP | No Comments »
February 13, 2007 by
Jason It can be used to prevent a beginner computer user from making changes to their computer by restricting them from accessing or even saving any changes to critical areas. UAP is also helpful against Spyware and other malicious software because it will require the user to consent to the action, before any system changes are made.
UAP is a good feature but sometimes it is necessary to tweak it a little so that it is less annoying for more experienced users. For example, an advanced user may be overwhelmed by the number of pop up authorization they receive. By tweaking the settings they can reduce the number of those they see as well as completely disable UAP. Although I do not recommend you completely disable UAP, you can fine tune it to be easier to get along with.
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Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
February 10, 2007 by
Jason When, in August 2006, a vendor for AOL released search records on 657,000 AOL users, it was easy to look at the queries associated with specific users and determine what kinds of people they were and ultimately who they were. Your online activities could do end up in a database somewhere. Read the privacy policy of your favorite search engine, and you’ll see what methods it employs to collect valuable data about its users. Then consider how many times you’ve read about security breaches that result in data leaks.
There is a way to remain somewhat anonymous on the most popular of all search engines, Google. Remember that if you have a username log-in with any of the Internet search engines -say, a Microsoft Passport or a webmail account -their systems can build a profile of you. If you’re truly paranoid you may want to delete or cancel any free e-mail accounts that are associated with Web search engines and scrub their cookies from your hard drive. If you use any of the services from Google, such as Wallet, Groups, Gmail, or AdSense, or even if you get paid by Google AdWords on your own Web site, then you have an account that points back to your identity. This means that everything you do within the search can now point back to you as a unique user. See how it’s done… Read More»
Posted in Internet | 3 Comments »
February 09, 2007 by
Jason a) click Start and type ‘netplwiz’ or click that name on the Start menu
b) in the GUI window that comes up, uncheck the “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” box
c) click ‘Apply’
d) in the new dialog box that opens type the name of the account you want to auto-logon by default (if the account is not normally passworded then it blank)
e) click OK and exit
Posted in Windows Vista | 7 Comments »
February 09, 2007 by
Jason
Microsoft has enhanced security features in XP including the ability to create a floppy diskette to recover your password in case it is forgotten.
. Click Start > Control Panel > User Accounts.
. Click on the account which you want to create a password disk.
. Click Prevent a forgotten password which starts the Forgotten Password Wizard . This is found under Related Tasks.
. Insert a blank, formatted disk into drive A, and click Next.
. Enter the password in the Current user account password box.
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Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »
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