Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives
Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages
From: Geoffrey Steven Nathan <geoffnathan () WAYNE EDU>
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2012 07:45:33 -0500
I will agree with Kevin here. My wife is a high-level administrator here, and often has to act very quickly on tricky personnel issues. When someone sends her a pdf related (say) to an emergency dismissal and her Acrobat insists on an update NOW, the last thing she needs is to submit a support ticket and wait a couple of days before she can read the file. This kind of thing happens more often than we might think (well, maybe not the emergency dismissal), but the notion that IT support student workers' time is more valuable than the Vice President's time, so we need to hold up their work to minimize IT support costs needs to be discussed with all parties involved. And yes, there may be tools that will make such updates automatic, or make remote updating trivial, but actually implementing those tools still seems a long way off. Just my 2c worth. Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Faculty Liaison and IT Policy Coordinator, C&IT and Professor, Linguistics Program http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/ +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) ----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Shalla" <kshalla () UIC EDU> Sent: Friday, November 30, 2012 4:48:38 PM Subject: Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages
A few have admin rights now, and there’s a stampede by others to also get it, so we’re considering granting it to many others.
Kevin
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Steven Alexander Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2012 3:00 PM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages
Kevin,
Most users don’t require anything above basic user privilege to do their jobs. If you give them administrator rights, you are giving up control of their machines. The users can install any software, bypass group policy and possibly gain domain admin rights (if a domain admin logs in to their machine). They will also be much more vulnerable to malware. Most malware requires administrator privilege for full functionality because admin rights are needed to install device drivers, put a network card into promiscuous mode or install a new service.
Prohibited software can span a pretty wide range: games, P2P software, unlicensed/pirated software, personally owned software. You need to worry about performance/compatibility problems, security issues, copyright.
What’s the context behind your question? Do your users have admin rights now? Are you considering granting or taking away admin rights for everyone or just some users?
Regards,
Steven Alexander Jr. Online Education Systems Manager Merced College 3600 M Street Merced, CA 95348-2898 (209) 384-6191 alexander.s () mccd edu
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [ mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU ] On Behalf Of Shalla, Kevin Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2012 12:24 PM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU Subject: [SECURITY] Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages
I’m trying to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of prohibiting administrator access for users of Windows computers. Can you provide feedback on what I have below? By the way, what’s an example of software that is generally prohibited? Is BitTorrent an example? Is it common?
Advantages Most malware stays on one user profile, so other users on same machine are unaffected. Deleting the profile can remove the malware. Prohibited (by policy) software doesn’t get installed. Combinations of software known to be problematic are not installed (like multiple active versions of antivirus).
Disadvantages User cannot install or update some software immediately – have to wait for desktop support.
Kevin Shalla
Current thread:
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages, (continued)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Morrow Long (Nov 27)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Jason Gates (Nov 27)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Shalla, Kevin (Nov 30)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages randy (Dec 02)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Steven Alexander (Dec 03)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Morrow Long (Nov 27)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Steven Alexander (Nov 27)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Shalla, Kevin (Nov 30)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Christopher R Webber (Nov 30)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Eric C. Lukens (Nov 30)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Eric Case (Dec 01)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Shalla, Kevin (Nov 30)
- Re: Non-administrator advantages / disadvantages Jeff Kell (Dec 01)