# Ditch admin rights to remove most Microsoft bugs



## sjb007 (Dec 10, 2007)

Nine of out 10 critical bugs reported by Microsoft last year could have been made less dangerous or even irrelevant, if users ran Windows without administrative rights, claimed a developer of enterprise rights management software.

BeyondTrust, which touts its Privilege Manager as a way for companies to lock down PCs, tallied the individual vulnerabilities that Microsoft disclosed in 2008, then examined each accompanying security bulletin. If the bulletin's "Mitigating Factors" section, the part that spells out how to lessen the risk of attack or eliminate it entirely, said that users with fewer rights "could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative rights," BeyondTrust counted the bug.

The vast majority of critical Microsoft vulnerabilities - 92 percent of them - could have been mitigated by stripping users of administrative rights, said John Moyer, the CEO of BeyondTrust. "This speaks to what enterprises should be doing," Moyer said. "Clearly, eliminating administrative rights can close the window of opportunity of attack."

Of the 154 bugs published and patched by Microsoft in 2008, critical or not, 69 percent would have been blocked or their impact reduced by configuring users to run without administrative rights, said the company.

When BeyondTrust looked at the vulnerabilities patched for Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer (IE), and its application suite, Office, it found that 89 percent of the former and 94 percent of the latter could have been stymied by denying users administrative privileges.

"We were surprised to see how large the number was," said Scott McCarley, the company's director of marketing. "It really drives home how critical a role [rights] play."

Microsoft's approach to user rights has been a matter of debate of late. Last week, a pair of bloggers posted proof-of-concept code that demonstrated how attackers could disable Windows 7's revamped User Account Control (UAC). UAC, a security feature that appeared in 2007 with Windows Vista, prompts users for their consent before Windows allows tasks such as program installations to continue.

http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=110461


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## mailer1058 (Jul 6, 2007)

Thanks for that, could help me .my admin stops me from install/uninstall programs & files, it says through set polices, can i ditch these polices.


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## tetonbob (Jan 10, 2005)

mailer1058 said:


> my admin stops me from install/uninstall programs & files, it says through set polices, can i ditch these polices.


As far as we are concerned, no. Policies set by your admin are not to be circumvented, and we do not assist in doing so. If you have a legitimate need, discuss it with the admin.

Please read the rules.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/rules.php



> NETWORK RESTRICTIONS
> 
> We will not assist any user who, in our opinion, is clearly trying to circumvent his company network protocols or restrictions put on his system by a Network Administrator. Again we have no ability to assess the user's intent.


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## mailer1058 (Jul 6, 2007)

thanks ,so whats pre-installed in admin ,ive got to keep yes/no" ,


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