Re: can someone get admin password with physical access?

From: Jim MacArthur (jim.macarthur@nospam.man.thanks.ac.uk)
Date: 02/26/02 

From: jim.macarthur@nospam.man.thanks.ac.uk (Jim MacArthur)
Date: 26 Feb 2002 09:35:21 GMT

In article <xcFe8.8388$1d4.2988243@twister.socal.rr.com>, t2k2p@socal.rr.com
says...
>
>Hi, I help out the admin at my school with security, and we have very poor
>physical security of computers. Is there a way that any person with
>physical access hack the admin or other users password? I heard that you
>can use a linux boot disk to access a file and use l0ptcrack to crack it,
>but I heard that it only works for FAT32 partitions. Is this true? And if
>there is a way to hack the passwords if someone has physical access, how can
>they do it? and is there a way to stop it? (besides physical security)
>thanks a lot.
>
>calvin-

Yes, at least for any users stored locally - domain users would be more secure.
If l0phtcrack doesn't work for NTFS it's probably only a matter of time until
it does.

The way round this is to set the boot order on each PC's BIOS so it will only
boot from the hard disc and then set a BIOS password to prevent further
changes. How you do this depends on your PC.

The only way around the BIOS password is to open the case and start swapping
links on the motherboard, so to be totally safe buy some padlocks and lock the
cases on.

Jim

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