[McGRP01]

Anyone know of an easy to use freeware ERD or like program to clear/reset an admin password? A friend of mine just got a sueed computer, but has no idea what teh windows password is to log onto it. Preferable, a program that will work with Windows2000/2003/XP.

Thanks!

 

[Kevin]

 

[BadDNA]

Here's a bootable CD that will let you reset the password.

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

 

[McGRP01]

Here's a bootable CD that will let you reset the password.

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Thanks, I was just looking at that site!

 

[LordOpie]

so, wait, what's the point of a password then?

 

[BadDNA]

so, wait, what's the point of a password then?

To keep honest people out, just like locks.

 

[LordOpie]

To keep honest people out, just like locks.

I really need to become dishonest... it's apparently easy and if you get caught, you only go to While Collar Prison, so at least you know you won't have to suffer the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

 

[BadDNA]

This isn't Riyadh. You know they're not gonna saw your hands off here, alright? The worst they would ever do is they would put you for a couple of months into a white-collar, minimum-security resort! ****, we should be so lucky! Do you know, they have conjugal visits there?

 

[LordOpie]

Os+ :d

 

[binary visions]

so, wait, what's the point of a password then?

If you don't have physical security on a machine, you don't have security. Period.

For local machines that workers and such have access to, you should have network authentication and access policies set up to protect your network and this won't be a problem.

Other than that, passwords are simply a nuisance to protect yourself from the average schmuck. Gotta secure the physical machine, first and foremost.

 

[Westy]

If you don't have physical security on a machine, you don't have security. Period.

For local machines that workers and such have access to, you should have network authentication and access policies set up to protect your network and this won't be a problem.

Other than that, passwords are simply a nuisance to protect yourself from the average schmuck. Gotta secure the physical machine, first and foremost.

My company would like to think otherwise. They installed some kind of software that encrypts all the data on the HDD after a computer got stolen that contained critical data. I have no doubt that it can be cracked but the funny thing is our IT department hasn't found away for us to be able to make system backups that can restore a failed hard drive when using the encryption software. Their solution was to give each of us an external HDD drive to copy all of our data on to. The external drives are not secured hardware or softwarewise. A top notch security scheme.

 

[binary visions]

Their solution was to give each of us an external HDD drive to copy all of our data on to. The external drives are not secured hardware or softwarewise. A top notch security scheme.

So they decided the best security scheme was to relocate the important data onto unsecured easily stolen external drives instead of the more difficult-to-steal internal discs? That's fantastic!

Actually, encryption is a great way to solve the physical security issue, and a decent implementation could be very difficult to crack. The problem, of course, is that losing your key can result in complete, irrevocable loss of all data and writing the key down is as bad as no encryption.

They could probably use a program like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost to make images of the drives, encryption and all.

 

[Westy]

So they decided the best security scheme was to relocate the important data onto unsecured easily stolen external drives instead of the more difficult-to-steal internal discs? That's fantastic!

Actually, encryption is a great way to solve the physical security issue, and a decent implementation could be very difficult to crack. The problem, of course, is that losing your key can result in complete, irrevocable loss of all data and writing the key down is as bad as no encryption.

They could probably use a program like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost to make images of the drives, encryption and all.

We used to use Norton Ghost and other programs but they don't seem to work with the encryption software. I don't know much about it but a co-worker got screwed when his ghost image wouldn't work because of the encryption.

 

[binary visions]

Huh.

Well it all depends on what software you're using and how you're encrypting/decrypting it, there's almost certainly a way to make it work. Since your company is unlikely to pay me for the solution, though, I'll let your IT department struggle with it

 

[CrabJoe StretchPants]

Kinda related, posted by my buddy 15min ago (he's a network engineer/IT guy):

http://www.bustedspoke.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=41621

 

[BigMike]

What people need to remember is: physical access IS root access!