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Google is always good at finding this stuff
That becomes a security risk when you think about it. And if MS wants to meet the needs of the US Gov, this may be part of the reason why. In addition, many of the *nix environments are putting passwords on single user mode, so this may become a thing of the past.Quote:
Always wished MS would allow a UNIX like single user mode from console to change admin
password if lost or forgotten..
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Originally posted here by Spyder32
Hrmm, where can I get this "Passware" program. I'd like to see it and it's website, etc because that program look's (well, sounds like) as if it could be used the wrong way. For instance, a hacker could easily use it on a school computer or his home computer to get admin privledge's because his mom/teacher/admin set a password. He would use that to make the password reset, so that program seem's like it could be used the wrong way.
http://www.lostpassword.com/
Yes it can be used for evildoing.
With the good always comes the bad..:)
Well...since the default Administrator password has been compromised, I suggest one of two things:
1) Do the reformat suggested by the above.
2) Preform a good, ol' fashion hack against the box.
The second may seem like a waste of time, but it might be a good learning experience. Boot up into a CD based Linux, copy the SAM file, extract the password hashes, and perform dictionary and, if need be, brute force attacks.
If you decided to format the drive with fat32 during the initial installation, you may be able to get the SAM by just dragging it off the HD while mounted as a secondary drive.
Or, if you feel less adventurous....just copy important files...and reformat...BORING... :D
Another bad thing about this is that you cannot retrieve your old files if they used EFS encryption on the drive. You can't get the old files back unless you get the original password anyway....
Goes without saying...Quote:
That becomes a security risk when you think about it. And if MS wants to meet the needs of the US Gov, this may be part of the reason why. In addition, many of the *nix environments are putting passwords on single user mode, so this may become a thing of the past.
the link specified in the earlier post .. explains how to use the tool... and its actually pretty simple.. just like working with a wizard... the possiblity of misuse cant be denied.. but lets hope tht it is used for good only..
The way I look at it, the box has physically been owned...............so you don't know what is or is not on it? It has been owned by a known malicious person?
I am afraid that is the standard recommendation in these circumstances from a purely security aspect.Quote:
Or, if you feel less adventurous....just copy important files...and reformat...BORING...
Cheers
I take it that you now can access the admin account? That tool is surprisingly easy and is probably used by both white and black hats. There is another link there on how to deal with the AD server if the password is forgotten. We experimented here at the school and I was showing it to a colleague. We were amazed as to how easy it was to reset the password (without a boot disk) for the AD (took us about 2 min due to reading comprehension issues). Granted you can take a longer method (the linux bootdisk, copy the same and try to find the right hash) but the real world often is a "NOW" concept. Sometimes tools just work better. :D
This is an important point to consider. A check of the box for things like viruses, trojans etc. might be worthwhile. While he may have locked out the admin account, it is possible he did more. A reformat will guarantee you catch everything but perhaps it might be worthwhile to see if you can find it without resorting to a reformat just yet.Quote:
The way I look at it, the box has been physically been owned...............so you don't know what is or is not on it? It has been known by a known malicious person?
I would only suggest my option if there were EFS encrypted files that he "needed" to get access to.
Seeing as how these people appear to be nothing more than "learned" users at best, I would assume they do not.
With the good indeed come's the bad, but that Passware program sounded more to me as if it was meant more for malicious intention's. I mean, think of like a program description for it.
:DQuote:
This program reset's the admin's password. 1337 r1gh7??
Peter utility will "blank" the password
*nix box nowadays stop that "single user root password reset" because it was really dumbass to do that. You can avoid that