Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks
From: "MustLive" <mustlive () websecurity com ua>
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 23:54:54 +0300
Hello Susan! If Microsoft did it, than it's good. But better for my opinion to do such as in Windows XP Professional - not to disable admin account by default, but to make password of default admin account similar to password of first admin (during installation process). Because if default admin account will be enabled later (with empty password) and will forget to set new password, than it'll be much worse. I'm not using Vista, so I can't check this issue on any of my computers. And I want to check it by myself - is there such issue on Vista or not. For this I'm planning to check one notebook of my friend (with Vista). But for more than two weeks I couldn't meet with him and take his notebook. I quickly checked two Asus notebook of my friends (as I wrote already to bugtraq), but there is some delay with this Acer notebook with Vista. If in near time I'll not be able to meet with my friend to take his notebook (because he is busy), then I'll try to check this situation on one Samsung notebook of another friend of mine (and better to check both these notebooks). There are many versions of Vista, so there can be such situation with different versions of Vista as with XP, where XP Home and XP Professional have different situations with default admin accounts. Which leads to vulnerability in XP Home. So I'm planning to investigate different versions of Windows Vista to be sure. Best wishes & regards, MustLive Administrator of Websecurity web site http://websecurity.com.ua----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan Bradley" <sbradcpa () pacbell net>
To: "MustLive" <mustlive () websecurity com ua> Cc: <bugtraq () securityfocus com> Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 3:42 AM Subject: Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks
Microsoft agrees with you which is why they disable the admin account by default in Vista. MustLive wrote:Hello! Just came to securityfocus.com and found that there are some answers on my post about Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks.Is not that a simple design decission? (truly brain-dead, but a conscious decission).David, it's very bad design decision. As for Microsoft (if we will be claiming that it's hole in Windows XP), as for Acer (because they use their own program for first OS initialization process, so it's definitely vulnerability in Acer). And also for Asus - recently I wrote to bugtraq about similar vulnerability in Asus notebook.That is I standard issue with Windows XP.Dave, this is not standard issue for all versions Windows XP. It can be only issue of XP Home Edition (because I found such cases only in XP HE), but I'm investigating it now to be completely sure in it. In all Windows XP (in all versions with which I worked from 2001), after installation the default Administrator account's password was always set equal to first admin's password. I used a lot of different Windows XP (XP Professional and also XP Home on my two notebooks). And in all versions from original (Gold) to SP1 and SP2 (didn't work with XP's installations with SP3) it was the same behavior (except these two notebooks with XP Home). So normal behavior for Windows XP is to set default admin's password equal to first admin's password.With any installation of it you have to boot in safe mode and manually set a password on the hidden admin account.In XP Professional default admin account is not hidden, only in XP Home Edition. And default admin password can be changed not only in safe mode, but in normal mode from any admin account (in both XP Professional and XP HE). Particularly it can be done in command prompt with "net" command.Try the "net user password ..." command (from the CMD prompt). That'll save you from having to do it in safe mode.Garrett, you mean the next command: net user Administrator password ;-) If in XP Professional you can use GUI or command prompt to change default admin's password, then in XP HE you can only use command prompt (due to Windows XP HE limitations). P.S. People, I'm not subscribed to bugtraq, so if you want to answer me, than write directly to my email. Best wishes & regards, MustLive Administrator of Websecurity web sitehttp://websecurity.com.ua
Current thread:
- Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks MustLive (May 11)
- RE: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks David Sánchez Martín (May 11)
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks dpo5003 (May 12)
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks Garrett M. Groff (May 12)
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks Øystein Larsen (May 12)
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks dpo5003 (May 12)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks MustLive (May 19)
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks Susan Bradley (May 20)
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks MustLive (May 28)
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks Susan Bradley (May 28)
- Re: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks Susan Bradley (May 20)
- RE: Insufficient Authentication vulnerability in Acer notebooks David Sánchez Martín (May 11)