RE: Restrict the Domain Admin

["Charles Otstot" <charles.otstot () ncmail net>]

Viewing the original post, it seems to me that the question wasn't whether
domain admins were needed for *all* tasks, but whether accounts designated
as domain admins (from the OS's perspective) could have their access limited
so that those accounts could not perform *certain* tasks.

At some point (whether logged or not, someone will need complete (domain
admin) access. How you vet the need and how you control what occurs during
the access is another question entirely.

In this context, cc's answer is reasonable and correct.
Perhaps the best answer for the original poster would be along the lines of
an older, traditional response:

Those people who are designated as domain administrators should have two
accounts...One for their everyday tasks and one for their administrative
tasks. The administrative account should only be used for administrative
tasks requiring domain admin access.

Yes, auditing and other checks and balances should be in place. More
importantly, this leaves the primary remaining issues as management issues
rather than technical (i.e. Here are the rules the organization deems
appropriate, if you break the rules, there will be consequences).
To recall a poster of some time ago from this very list, all too often we
seem to find people looking for technical answers to what are basically
management policy questions. We look to technical limiters to replace human
management, all too often simply for the sake of using technology rather
than approaching the problem through rational and sound human practices.
In this case, if you have a domain admin who does something improper, you
fire them and move on I realize this answer ignores "What if he/she steals
confidential data or blows away your entire network, however, if you don't
have those things covered by other policies, you've already missed the boat.

Charlie

-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Wright [mailto:cwright () bdosyd com au] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 5:47 PM
To: cc; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Restrict the Domain Admin

Have we heard of segregation of duties?

I am sorry but I have NEVER seen a site with more than 1 IT person where
domain admins are needed for all tasks. It is not about whether you
trust the person - minimise the exposure. The trust argument is just a
waste of time.

Even when I was an admin - I always made sure that I did not have
complete control without going through a change process where everything
is logged and checked - just to cover my own ass if something happened

Craig

PS
Lets hope that you never have me doing a SOX, SAS70 or other audit of
your site

-----Original Message-----
From: cc [mailto:cc () belfordhk com] 
Sent: 20 September 2005 4:56
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Restrict the Domain Admin

sf_mail_sbm () yahoo com sighed and wrote::

> Hi List,
> Is there a way to restrict access of a Domain Admin?

Here's my $0.02.

By restricting the access of a domain admin, you've already defeated the
purpose of a domain admin.  The main point of the matter is that in
order for one person to be a domain admin, you must have extraordinary
(or maybe just special) trust in both the person's ability and their
standards of
operating procedures.   By restricting access to the domain
admin, you are in essence saying, "Here's the domain access, but we
don't trust you enough to give you the full 9 yards so we're restricting
your access to these privileges."

If you don't have 100% confidence in either the person's ability or
their ethics, you really shouldn't be giving the person that much access
to begin with.

As some other poster (Mr. Armfield) mentioned here, eventually you'll
need a person who has access to the whole nine yards.