Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Flying Fox, Ryu Connor
DPete27 wrote:To answer a few questions:
1) I don't feel as if anything on my computers would be particularly sensitive data. I keep paper and electronic copies of finance-related things locked in safes. I also keep computer backups on an external hdd.
DPete27 wrote:2) It's only myself and the misses on our network. Obviously, once we have kids, I'll set passwords and (limited) user accounts.
DPete27 wrote:3) My WiFi password looks to be a computer-generated random sequence of 9(ish) numbers provided by my ISP. I haven't bothered changing the password. Seems pretty secure to me.
sid1089 wrote:My rule of thumb:
Desktop: No password.
Laptop: Password.
Work Computer: Password.
just brew it! wrote:Does your (unprotected) account had admin privileges? If so, you're susceptible to drive-by malware installs. Which in turn makes you vulnerable to identity theft via keyloggers and rootkits if you ever use your computer to conduct *any* sensitive business
DPete27 wrote:just brew it! wrote:Does your (unprotected) account had admin privileges? If so, you're susceptible to drive-by malware installs. Which in turn makes you vulnerable to identity theft via keyloggers and rootkits if you ever use your computer to conduct *any* sensitive business
Not sure I understand how having a Windows log-in password will protect me from keyloggers and rootkits? Those things sound like something that a firewall and/or virus protection handles.
just brew it! wrote:If you run with admin privileges and no password, anything that gets past your AV can install itself without you realizing anything is amiss.
DPete27 wrote:just brew it! wrote:If you run with admin privileges and no password, anything that gets past your AV can install itself without you realizing anything is amiss.
And having a Windows password prevents these malware that get around AV from installing on your computer without first entering(cracking) your Windows password?
A_Pickle wrote:Burglars exist. Why not have a password? My password's fricken' huge, and I type it every time. It's not that big of a deal.
td1353l wrote:Agreed, it depends on who you live with, and how devious they are, consider listing your friends too. I have no password, cuz i doubt my 6 year old son will do too much, and the misses can use facebook only.
UberGerbil wrote:The Windows password (as far as the local machine is concerned -- ie, assuming you're not actually logging into a domain, etc) is essentially intended to keep other local users out. If you're the only person who's going to sit down at that machine -- and it's not a laptop that might wander away -- your security isn't affected in any practical way by not having a password. However, if other users might use your machine, they should each have accounts and everybody should have passwords. And if other people might have access to your machine when you're not around -- roommates, friends of roommates, kids, etc -- you definitely want to have a good password. (Of course this only protects you from casual exploits / bad behavior like logging onto your facebook account and posting something unfortunate, or visiting questionable websites, etc: if someone has physical access to your machine, they effectively have access to everything on that machine including any sensitive data and any logins you might have stored there, which is where drive encryption and other techniques start to matter, though physical access by untrusted actors is problematic even for the most security-conscious organizations).
just brew it! wrote:If you run with admin privileges and no password, anything that gets past your AV can install itself without you realizing anything is amiss.
Meadows wrote:UberGerbil wrote:if someone has physical access to your machine, they effectively have access to everything on that machine including any sensitive data and any logins you might have stored there
I disagree with the part I've emphasised. I have alternate accounts set up on my computer for other users for "casual" computer usage, but for each standard account I have set up NTFS permissions as follows:
* Reading or modifying my backups is denied;
* Access to "C:\Users\[insert my account name]" is completely denied;
* Writing to anything on C: except for the "Users\[their own]" and "Users\Public" folders is denied;
* Access to the other partitions and drives is completely denied (they may not even read the root folder);
just brew it! wrote:Unless you've disabled booting from external devices in the BIOS, password-protected the BIOS so that nobody else can change the BIOS settings, physically secured the case so that only you can open it, and check the back of the computer every time someone else has had physical access to make sure a hardware keylogger hasn't been installed between your keyboard and the PC, UberGerbil's statement still holds.