Getting in windows 2k and xp with local access.

[MrLinus]

..a home office or personal type setting.

But even in a home setting bios password and disabling the floppy (if not needed) are ways around this. Heck, I'd even go as far as a bootup password as you are more likely to be at home during reboot than you would be at work.

It's little things and the way BIOSes are made today, it's as simple as removing the battery any more. Some boards don't have that option (so you better remember the password(s))

[576869746568617]

I give up....You win!

I see I must be a little more thourough in my thought process. Hmmm......Maybe I better go and check my firewall rules and see if I missed something there too!

J.K. MsMittens...I do see your point, and it is well taken.

Disabling all bootup media options except HDD0, and setting boot and setup BIOS passwords, should be the minimum physical security settings for any computer, IMHO.

I have edited my original post to reflect this little tidbit.

I can't argue with someone when they are right....that would be stupid of me.

[lepricaun]

i was talking about home systems too, of course it is a lot harder to get into a serverroom without permission, and i don't mean you'll have to do that, i just meant that with permission, you'll be in a box in no time!

heck, if you just want to access the data, boot with the knoppix 3.3 cd and mount the hdd's with read write access, now you'll have access to all the data ( of course not if data is encrypted!)

[ikalo]

One thing about BIOS.

If you have phisical acces to computer, and have screwdriver in your pocket, BIOS password can be erased. Make sure that you have some kind of padlock on your case.

The bottom line is, if someone realy wants to get in your box, he/she will do it. It is just mater of time and pattience. The only thing we can do is to make that time longer, and hope that pattience of the attaker won't hold that long.

There is no apsolute safety for data, not even in your head.

[lepricaun]

if you can boot the system from cd without the possibility of getting in the bios, there is another tool that can retrieve the bios password:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/?cmospwd.html

this tool can be found too on a nice cd i've found recently:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

this cd contains some very interresting and helpfull tools!

[MrBabis]

I think that it is good to remove "Help" from start menu becouse it is not so much users that using it.

// Disable All that you never using // , almost all

[lepricaun]

help isn't used much i think indeed, but it is made for people who just don't even know what a computer is i think :P