Yes, If you need to break into Windows Vista, all you need are 5 minutes. That's how long it took me to manipulate vista user accounts and set their passwords to blank, from outside windows vista. No, I am not a hacker, neither do I have an IQ level equal to Einstein and indeed that's a most surprising part, a kid with some expertise on searching Google can easily do this.
what if you forget your vista password?
Last weekend my friend contacted me for some help. His son changed his windows vista password and forgot that. He asked me if there is some way to restore that. My flat answer was 'No' and that if there were really some way to hack then it was going to be a climbing mount everest for a non-hacker.
I was confident that 'there must be no easy way' because I know how much noise now Microsoft makes when it comes to security. I told him now Microsoft is real serious about security and they must have implemented some rock solid security (at lease for some to-be-hacker). But my friend insisted if I could try something and I agreed and took his laptop for some weekend exploration (something that I had abandoned for some time, fixing friends/relatives machines).
Microsoft is Serious about security,hmmm, really?
To be honest whatever happened on the weekend left me scratching my head ' Is Microsoft really serious about security?'. I am not going to explain what exactly I did to break into vista (so that this blog should not be a first step guide for to-be-hackers) but will describe briefly.
so what did I do exactly ?
In order to break into vista, an external program (found from google with step by step guide and not at some hackers heaven) that knows how to access NTFS system can easily give you access to all windows accounts and let you set all the properties that you could set through windows GUI. So not only I managed to reset the user accounts' passwords but also I enabled the Administrator account with blank password (which is by default disabled in windows). The whole process completed within 5 minutes and then when I restarted the laptop I had access to all windows accounts, right in front of me with blank passwords.
implications,
Without going into debate of how it was possible, I am more interested in thinking what could that mean. I am really concerned about the security of personal data in PCs, particularly laptops. As others do, my own laptop is full of personal data, from credit card details to ebay accounts.
Now I can't rely on windows userid/pwd security anymore. A hacker with such a program on a disk, that I used, can easily break any windows security (even windows 2003) within minutes. Now either I use some specialised software to protect my data or explore what other advanced options are available with in windows (hard to trust now).
So if I am right in my conclusions, you better watch your back when it comes to PC security.
Monday, January 21, 2008
How long Vista's defence could last? - 5 min
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Hi Hassan,
I think once you get your physical hardware owned you are in trouble. You can generally just rip an unencrypted NTFS hard drive out and mount it in Linux if you want full access (or use another driver that doesn't respect NTFS permissions). You can do the same thing with Linux security -- if you own the physical hard drive you can control how its data is accessed.
There are hard disk encryption tools (like BitLocker with Vista Ultimate) that can probably help in this situation. I believe these tools are a pretty good idea for protecting data (especially on laptops that are more likely to go walkabout), although I am sure they can be broken with enough effort too.
The real question is can you crack into Vista remotely. I am sure there are ways, but it is probably a bit tougher... how much tougher is the question :)
Hey dude
Jason from the office. The rule of thumb goes, if you have physical access to a machine theres pritty much nothing you can do to prevent it being rooted. The only means of protection is to use full disk encryption on the OS partition.
Oh dear, I guess that will mean another urgent security update should be produced soon by Microsoft. Thanks for letting me know
Thanks David and Jason for your advices.
Ok its understandable that unless you have got data stored in encrypted format you can't guarantee any data security. But still I have one question, why could some software see all the windows vista user accounts and modify any account property externally (linux/unix)? In my opinion Vista should store user account data in a way that first it must not be decrypted (at least not that easily as it was in my case) and even if decrypted then the properties could not be modified. Windows should stop working if it detects that someone has altered user account data. Getting access to windows through login allows the hacker with ease to use all the applications and the data stored within them (like accounting s/w etc).
one more thing that was surprsing too, the size of the whole application I downloaded was only 2.6 MB! not in gigs. and that can be used from a floppy drive to break into the pc.
The reason linux/unix can see is it is because of exactly that, the data is not encrypted. I think the reason its not encrypted (bar the password) is to maintain compatability with other applications that use these values. don't hold me to this though.
I think windows does have a mechanism to detect changes, but i cant recall what it is (been a while since i've done this).
Most accounting software these days stores the user data in an encrypted file regardless (myob does atleast), if it doesnt i suggest another accouting program.
Theres alot that someone can do if you dont encrypt the main drive, think about this if you store all your stuff in an encrypted volume but you save all your passwords in your browser or dont clear you cache. none of that will be encrypted because its on the OS partition, so an attacker could access all this information and access or know every website you've used. possible including online banking.
so all drives/partitions/volumes must be encrypted (this is what i do for my home machine)
Post a Comment