You can accomplish the most common tasks through delegation, but what about those tasks that you simply can't perform without full administrative permissions? For most of these tasks, you can use the Run As command. This command allows you to run a specific application as the administrator while logged in as a normal user. At first, this might seem to contradict your security goals, because you are still logging in as an administrator. But only that one application is running with administrative privileges. All other applications are running under the privileges of the user who initially logged into the system. Therefore, if a Trojan is present in the system, it can't exploit the administrative privileges. As far as the Trojan knows, it has only the basic user permissions. To run a program with administrative privileges, hold down the [Shift] key and then right-click the program's shortcut icon or menu selection. When the program's shortcut menu appears, select the Run As command. You'll then be prompted to enter a set of login credentials, which will be used to execute the application. The Run As command also works for command line utilities. Just open a command prompt window and enter the Run As command. Listing A shows the syntax for the Run As command. When you use the Run As command, you usually don't have to worry about most of the command line switches. For example, if you wanted to open Notepad as the administrator, you could do so by entering the following command:RUNAS /USER:administrator NOTEPAD.EXE
After entering the command, you'll be prompted for a password. If you enter the password correctly, the application will open. No compromises
Although the Windows administrator account is necessary, it's also quite dangerous. I've explained some of the ways that the account can be compromised and discussed some secure alternatives to working with it. These steps can be some of the most important actions you can take to secure a Windows network.
For a weekly round-up of the enterprise IT news, sign up for the
Enterpise newsletter. Find out what's where in the new Tech Update with our
Guided Tour. Tell us what you think in the
Enterprise Mailroom.
Enterpise newsletter. Find out what's where in the new Tech Update with our
Guided Tour. Tell us what you think in the
Enterprise Mailroom.
