Re: Password Cracking & Consequences

[Michael Mills <mmills () RKON COM>]

Justin,

You make very valid points these options are available and they are also
auditable.

To not lose my main point, IT staff knowingly cracking passwords is not a
good practice.  It is also not part of any recommended "Best Practices".

If there is a way to lock something up, then there is a way to unlock it.
Its just how hard you make the unlocking process that counts.



Michael Mills

-----Original Message-----
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Discussion Group Listserv
[mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Justin Azoff
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 11:53 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Password Cracking & Consequences

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.  So again, I stress the point that under no circumstances should
> ANYONE know ANYONE else's password, weather it is by "cracking" or by
asking
> someone their password.
Are you aware that there is a program called "su" in unix, and windows
has "Run as..."?
What about adding their ssh key to ~user/.ssh/authorized_keys and then
logging in as them over the network, no password required?

If someone on the IT staff wanted to do something on a users account
they do not need to know the users password.
Cracking a users password is not about knowing their password, it is
about knowing that they have a weak password.

--
-- Justin Azoff
-- Network Performance Analyst

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