Privileges Risk &
Logon - do not surf as administrator in Windows
XPOneStep is a member at the Computer Help Club. He
wrote to us to tell us how dangerous it is to use an administrative
account to surf the web and read email. I'm sure some of you have no idea
what the differences are between an admin or limited user account. If
that's true, then see this
article. Here are instructions for creating
accounts.
Quote from OneStep: Most home users create a user account which
has administrative privileges. This is a dangerous practice
especially when surfing as any malware seeking to install inherits the
user's privileges. If you're logged in with admin rights the malware
gets unfettered rights to your critical system files/settings too.
Thus, it is better to use a Power user or Limited user account for every
day use and only use the inbuilt admin account for maintenance and
installing/uninstalling stuff.
Microsoft has released a little utility that makes it safer for those of you who don't want to listen to advice and want to surf and email with full administrative privileges. It's called "Drop My Rights".
Microsoft has released a little utility that makes it safer for those of you who don't want to listen to advice and want to surf and email with full administrative privileges. It's called "Drop My Rights".
Quote from Microsoft: What if someone does want to browse the
Web? Or read e-mail? Or do Instant Messaging and so on, and for some
reason must run in an administrative context? If you look at the major
threats to computers, they are from user interaction with the Web through
tools like browsers and e-mail clients.