Re: password safety

From: null (null_at_pc.net)
Date: 08/11/03 

Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 10:55:37 -0400

Elliott wrote:
> I have just started using a password on my XP system. I
> was told it was a good security measure in addition to
> firewalls. I have made a floppy for startup in case I
> forget the password.
>
> I wonder if any of you have experience with passwords.
> My concern is a system corruption that would lock me out,
> even though I had the correct password. Would the
> password floppy then work, or are they are work arounds?
>
> Thank you.

A good thing to do is to create a separate login account that has
Administrator rights, and give it a good strong password - 15
characters, mix of lower and upper case, a mix of numbers, and a mix of
'unusual' characters, such as the $. Do not use this account as your
day-to-day login account, and check it occasionally to be sure you'll be
able to login with it.

For day-to-day operations, do not login to the PC with an account that
has Administrator rights.

For the account that logs in using the Administrator login name, rename
it to something less obvious - hackers love to attack the Administrator
account because it is common to every XP PC, and it can be attacked with
a brute force password attack without getting locked out. Be sure you
can remember the name of the account and its password too! Once you have
renamed the account, create a 'dummy' account with the name of
Administrator but has no rights, or limited rights. This will give
hackers a bogus account to try to hack, but if they do hack it, they
won't have any rights or permissions to do damage to your system. 

-- 
-the small one
All postings carry no guarantee or warranty, expressed or implied. 
Proceed at your own risk, and perform system and data backups prior to 
making changes to your system, and on a regular basis, to protect your 
system.

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