Generally, we give more privilege to Administrator accounts, what will you do when your administrators can cause damage inadvertently when you are performing your tasks. I think, then you must think about your User accounts. Give some limitations to administrators on the network, and enhance your network security system.



Microsoft realized this concept and using this in its Windows Vista. In windows Vista, developers have given same privilege to administrator as well as user accounts. This strategy is known as User Account Protection, in which users can perform certain task without the need of administrator rights. This would allow users to do their day-to day work with system security.



This is great news for users but think about administrators, they have to do more work. There are three steps to make your administrator account more secure:



1) Disable the Default Administrator Account: When you give privilege to your administrator account, it is easy for attacker to identify your account. You can rename your administrator account. However, it is still easy for attacker to determine your default administrator account. A better solution is to create a new administrator account and disable the in-built administrator account. In this type of administrator account, attacker has less chance to discover the renamed administrator account.



2) Perform Tasks as a User Rather Than Administrator: It is quite common that you use administrator for login and perform your tasks like e-mail and Web browsing. It makes easy for virus, spyware and other malware to attack on your administrator account. Therefore, it is better not to mention that you logged in to your systems as administrator. The best solution is that you set up separate user account for your standard tasks and log-in as users, when you need to perform those functions. When you want to perform some administrator task, then login as administrator, perform it and log-out immediately. Make sure that you are not using administrator account to perform those tasks.



3) Create a Strong Administrator Password: Alphabetic passwords are easy to crack. It is better to use following tips about your administrator password:



a) It should be 15 characters long

b) Password should not contain any names, real, which can be found in the dictionary.

c) The password should be completely different from previous one.

d) It is better to use mix of special characters, uppercase and lowercase.



The 15 character long password with special characters is not easy to crack for an attacker. Making limitation on your administrator account, you can make network secure. I hope you will try to make your network secure and safe.



Via: Server IQ