Re: Password Cracking & Consequences

[Gary Flynn <flynngn () JMU EDU>]

Michael Mills wrote:

> Actually is does matter.  If the IT staff "Cracks" users accounts then the
> IT staff can log on as that user and do as they wish (any department for
> that matter).  However if that same IT person changes that users password
> and then logs on as that person, an audit trail is created.  Even if that IT
> user would delete that audit trail, that deletion would show up in the audit
> trail.

That may be the intention but I don't know of
too many commercial operating systems and
applications that can protect an audit trail
from a privileged user. Add-on tools could be
used to transfer events in real-time to another
system but how many people are using them? Even
if you did, you'd have the same issue about trust
in the auditors.


--
Gary Flynn
Security Engineer
James Madison University

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