Forwarded From: Simon Taplin <sticker@icon.co.za>
Secure NT Against Snoops and Other Colleagues
by Scott Spanbauer
If you're like most users, you probably don't think much about who has
access to your PC. Do you know who's been reading your mail at night? And
what about those performance evaluations and salary recommendations you're
working on? Even if you work from home, you may want to keep roommates,
spouses, or kids from accidentally deleting your files, e-mail, or
personal finance records.
Windows NT provides real log-in security, user accounts, and file- access
controls. But you don't get all those benefits until you change some
settings. The first task is creating a user account for yourself. "What?"
you ask, "But I'm already 'Administrator'." And your password is probably
password, right? NT creates the Administrator account when you first
install, but you don't need most of its sweeping powers every day. To take
its place, you can create a user account for yourself in the Users or
Power Users group (the latter allows you to share directories and printers
with others on the network).
To create a new user account, choose: 'Start, Programs, Administrative
Tools (Common), User Manager' to open Windows NT's User Manager. Next,
select 'User, New User.' Enter a short, descriptive user name and type a
password into the Password and Confirm Password fields. Make the password
something memorable that you don't need to write down, and the longer it
is, the better--Windows NT allows up to 14 characters. Avoid words from
the dictionary and repeating characters (like "123123"). Next, uncheck
User Must Change Password at Next Logon, and check both User Cannot Change
Password and Password Never Expires. The new user account will
automatically be part of the Users group; if you'd like to add it to the
Power Users group as well, click the Groups button, choose Power Users in
the "Not member of" window, click Add, and click OK. Click OK again to
create the new user account.
While you're at it, rename the Administrator account--and choose a good
password--to make it more difficult for anyone to break into it. Renaming
the account is straightforward: Simply open User Manager, select the
account, choose 'User, Rename,' enter the new name in the "Change To"
field, and then click OK.
-o-
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Received on Thu Mar 11 17:30:42 1999