So after that discussion about UAC in the other thread i now used it for some days too and for me it kinda feels "annoying". Some people said that UAC when beeing at maximum protection, cant be disabled/bypassed by any malware/trojan/... is it true? I know that it is possible to bypass/disable UAC at the default protection.. but never tried it on the maximum protection. Also it looks more annoying than usefull/secure since its just a simple "yes" popup and not something like root pw on linux.
Anyway I used it for 1-2 days and found alot of programs asking for UAC access:
Teamviewer
Secunia PSI
Filezilla setup
AutoIt setup
When UAC is alerting, it doesnt rly give any info about what is going on? It just said that this file wants to make changes / needs admin access. But there is no information of what this program actually wants to do. So how do you know if you should allow a file/setup or not (besides trustfull stuff. which still could be binded with a malware when someone found an exploit on the site and modified the download file.. but ye.. nvm that)
thx
-
UAC at the default Windows 7 can be disabled by malware. At max settings it can not be.
UAC is very helpful for preventing against malware because it essentially doesn't allow the malware to elevate to administrative level and therefor it doesn't allow it to mess with system files.
I found the linux popup more annoying because I couldn't hit "yes." lol I know I'll get for that.
Basically, UAC is asking "Is this program supposed to be running as admin?" and you look at the program and if you don't recognize it you can go ahead and say "No." Otherwise just let it run as admin. More and more programs are being coded to install to areas that don't require admin access because it's a security issue.
How are you supposed to know? Well as I said, if something is trying to get admin access randomly you probably don't want it to. If something is asking for UAC after you opened up a program it's probably that program but always check. When in doubt, google. -
Christoph.krn Notebook Evangelist
However, UAC dialogs will show you the "Verified publisher" of a file. This information is verified by looking at the digital signature of the file. So if the file gets modified, the UAC dialog normally doesn't show that original publisher anymore, but instead say that the publisher is "Unknown". Be aware that this technique is not foolproof either. For instance, there are various problems with it that are inherent to the design of a PKI (Public Key Infrastructure), which is being used to verify the signature of a file. For instance, if you (or a malicious software) succed(s) to install a malicious root certificate on your system, the "Verified publisher" of any file on your system can be faked. Furthermore, another big PKI problem is that the certificates which are already installed on your system must not necessarily have certificate chains following them that are absolutely trustworthy. The good news is that this is rather irrelevant given the fact that for various reasons, UAC is not really secure in the first place...
------
On an unrelated side note, why not give using proper English a try?
------
[1] Security is not a solution, it' a concept -
-
in the end i guess it would be more disturbing when having to enter a pw all the time :S
-
Generic malware doesn't have to bypass it most of the time because most people don't realize how useful UAC is lol
-
An admin with UAC kind of like using sudoer with no password attribute on it.
Anyways UAC is pretty useless, when most people just hit OK anyways when they got no clue of what it does. Goes pretty much the same on all linux OS. Luckily, most linux user are classed as technically proficient after they figure out the installation process, graphic or terminal.
In the end, it's all really is if that do your trust them, their code, their compiler that made their binaries ... etc etc -
-
Anyway this link shows you how to enable Highest Security UAC on Windows 7 Home Editions.
Hope it helps Home Administrators to lock down systems from pesky "download and run anything" Users.
Irresponsible and silly home users NEED to have their rights taken away.
This also helps in preventing people who "borrows" your computer with Windows 7 Home Edition from messing with it when your account is created as Administrator. -
Christoph.krn Notebook Evangelist
- Security feature:
A "security feature" does enhance security but can't necessarily be relied upon. Taking W-LAN as an an example, security features would be using a MAC-filter, disabling SSID broadcast ("hiding" the wireless network) or using WEP - in some way, these do enhance security, but they are easy to bypass. - Security boundary:
A "security boundary" is a strict security feature with no obvious easy ways to crack it. Taking W-LAN as an example, using WPA2 encryption would be a security boundary - for now, WPA2 can be called reasonably secure.
The default of Windows Vista as well as Windows 7 with UAC on highest setting is that your user account is an "Administrator in Admin Approval Mode" (AAM). This means that you have have the rights of a standard user unless you allow some process to run with elevated privileges (through a UAC dialog), which will automatically give them administrative rights. These UAC consent prompts for AAMs are NOT a security boundary, they can "easily" be bypassed [1].
So yes, UAC /may/ sometimes lead to higer security, but basically it's insecure because it's not meant to be relied upon. In any case, this doesn't mean that it's a good idea to disable UAC because it's not absolutely secure anyway. First of all, there is no such thing as "absolutely secure", and second, disabling security features makes you a potentially more lucrative victim (see also: " 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy").
zakazak, to somewhat increase the security of UAC (have a look at [1] for more information about what kind of security this would give you), you can create another password-protected user with administrative rights in the control panel of your system and make your own user account a standard account. Be aware that this will also cause UAC to ask for the password of the other account instead of asking you to click yes or no, which is another convenience tradeoff. I already linked to this information at Security is not a solution, it' a concept, where you can also find quite a lot more information on how to increase the security of your system.
------
Please read before asking. If you can't be bothered to look for information yourself before asking, people can't be bothered to answer you. (No offense intended, I'm not trying to imply that you don't care.)
------
[1] UAC: Desert Topping, or Floor Wax? - Security feature:
-
hmm i read it yesterday and if i got it right, one article describes that UAC is only 100% secure (cant be disabled/bypassed by malware without user clicking yes) when using it with an normal account where you have to enter a password.
So for me , a admin account user, it isnt that secure?
All in all UAC gves a little more security.. i´m not sure if it is usefull with comodo. I get asked by comodo about every software which has a dignital signature that isnt known (sandbox it? block it? send it to comodo? no internet access for that file?).
Thanks -
davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
other than that, teamviewer, if installed fully, never needs uac anymore except at installation time. quicksupport needs it at start time, of course (else, you can not install/uninstall anything on that client, as you would not be able to get admin rights)
secunia i don't know, nor would i ever use it.
after installing a pc, i see uac maybe once, twice a month. very, very very annoying indeed /sarcasmtag-all-the-way
thx[/QUOTE] -
teamviewer asks me everytime i run it for admin access.
-
1)Setup Installers
2)Hardware diagnostics
Setup Installers need Admin Permissions to install into Protected Folders
Hardware diagnostics need Low Level System Calls to Access their own Hardware directly (Since there is no universal API standard for hardware design).
All other Applications should use proper Operating Systems API to perform their corresponding functions.
Any Applications NOT doing that is a poorly coded application. -
okay so all in all i only have to worry about setup files beeing modified (binded with malware) and make sure those setup files are from a trustfull source. Most other programs shouldnt need admin access (except poorly coded stuff.. altough its hard for me to belive that teamviewer is so bad :S).
Now how to be 100% sure that malware cant bypass UAC? Admin account with UAC at maximum level (win7) could still get disabled / bypassed by malware without having the user click "yes" in the uac prompt? So i would have to create a second user (non admin) and work with that all the time and when uac asks me for permission, i would have to enter the admin pw?
thanks -
I posted this link on how to activate Secure Desktop Admin Mode on Windows 7 Home Edition(It is the same backend registry key for all Windows 7 Editions).
This will force credential requirements on all admin accounts with Secure Desktop Mode (unless there is a vulnerability hole in the OS).
It is very useful when you lend your computers to others for a while and they will not be able to mess with your system even in your Admin Account or install rubbish on it. -
davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
about the security: don't browse on non-legit pages and you'll be fine. uac + mse + notbrowsingforcracksandpr0n == good enough security to not have to bother. -
i have teamviewer installed.. still it asks everytime i run it.
thanks weinter, i did this. Hopefully no malware can disable/bypass UAC now anymore (without me clicking "yes"). -
-
also windows live messenger 2009 (with messenger plus installed) needs admin rights when starting it.
-
Other than that, the rule since time untold is to use a standard user account, not an administrative account, for your day-to-day work. This was true back in the good old Unix days, and it's just as true today, on any serious OS (Windows' new least-privileged philosophy notwithstanding). -
yes, it does.
yes it is windows live messenger 2009. Else comodo internet security (or kaspersky internet security which i used in the past) would tell me that there is smth wrong with it (e.g. checking digital signature online) -
Oh, and there are many ways in which starting messenger could do more than you think it does without any of those anti-virus packages noticing anything. Like I said before, the protection that anti-virus software provides is minimal. -
do you also have it installed with messenger plus?
i think this is what makes it need admin priviliges..
another thing i just found out: if i right click a program and set it to "run as administrator" i still get the pop up everytime i run it. Isnt there a way to tell a programm to run as admin (and when doing so i enter the admin password) and then its getting saved and the program starts itself everytime without a prompt? -
Christoph.krn Notebook Evangelist
However, it's important to note that this does not solve the several other potentially security related problems and considerations that exist with UAC, in particular not the the one that we're currently talking about here ( AAM Administrators and access tokens). Furthermore, attackers with physical access to your machine most likely have a myriad of other options to break into your system, often including, but not limited to, directly accessing the boot device; manipulating the machine via Firewire, Expresscard, Cardbus, PCMCIA; or booting up from an external boot device, thereby dumping the not-yet-cleared RAM contents in order to e.g. gain full access to the machine from remote locations.
- The most secure thing would be to create a separate "standard" user which you use for everyday tasks, and actually switch between users (like with Windows XP, except that in Windows XP this would NOT be secure), neither using a UAC consent prompt ("Yes" or "No") nor UAC credential prompt ("Enter password for user X").
- Creating a "standard" user which you use for everyday tasks and using UAC credential prompts is a bit less secure (this is where, instead of having to switch users, a UAC dialog will ask you for the password of a /separate/ administrator account that you would have to set up first).
Remember that there is no such thing as perfect security. YOU have to decide which of these possibilities is the one that's better suited for you. If you want "full" security, it would be best to "lock" UAC and switch between users whenever you need admin rights. Then, you could find other ways to handle programs that need administrative rights, such as using them in a virtual machine (which I also wrote about in Security is not a solution, it' a concept, be but be aware that virtual machines are not armor-plated either [1]) or using alternative software that's compatible with whatever you need the software to do.
After all, if your messenger runs with administrative rights all the time, a potential attacker exploiting that messenger would then already have full acces to your machine, no matter what UAC settings. Software should not run with administrative rights for day-to-day tasks. This is especially important for software which interprets data that's not necessarily coming from a trustful source or might have been altered in transit (no matter what data that is - websites, audio files and radio streams, instant messages, Windows Homegroup related data, PDFs, downloaded slideshows, pictures, fonts - everything you can imagine). Every software that surpasses a certain level of complexity has errors in it. In most software, these kinds of errors frequently lead to various kinds of security related problems that are not yet publicly known, but which may enable attackers to execute commands on your machine by sending specially crafted data or altering legit data that the software is receiving.
If you're not sure about a file, you can also use online anti-virus scanning services such as https://www.virustotal.com/ , which will check uploaded files for known malware using several anti-virus products (they can also lookup file records from their database of already analyzed files, based on a hash that you give them - see below). However, of course this can't guarantee that the file you uploaded is NOT compromised/malicious as these scanners will only finds malicious code that is already publicly known or very poorly written. Be aware that there are some evil online antivirus scanners out there which you should avoid.
You could then examine those files in a "disposable" virtual machine (but be aware that virtual machines are not armor-plated either [1]).
Furthermore, in case a file does not have a digital signature you can use checksums (also called "hashes", they are the base for digital signatures) to verify that it hasn't been modified. Have a look at Wikipedia:File_verification#Authenticity_verification. Currently, secure hash functions that are often used for this purpose are SHA1 as well as SHA256. MD5 is also used very often, but can no longer be called secure.
Microsoft has a command line tool available that's called "fciv" (File Checksum Integrity Verifier) which can be used to compute hashes.
------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] post7291485 and subsequent posts in "How paranoid are you about security?" -
Thanks for so much help Christoph.krn
I wonder if a standart user with uac prompt gives is more secure than an admin account with uac-password prompt?
Running vmware all the time in the backround isnt really an option for me either.
The only thing i´m really "scared" about is that some malware simply disabled UAC. I know that this is possible but I have no idea if the maximum level of UAC in win7 and/or the password prompt and/or a standart user will prevent malware from doing so.
I know and also normally check files before running them on jotti/virustotal or check their md5 hashes (altough those can be manipulated too).
I know that due to MSN running could cause a big security risk. However, I have been running my windows without UAC for a year already. Also i belive that it only need admin priviliges because i installed it while UAC was disabled. I recently re-installed a program which always asked for admin access and now its working fine
Thanks -
Christoph.krn Notebook Evangelist
-
Fine, I will create a standart user then and use that one. Any way to simply copy an already existing user to a new standart user (all settings, etc) ?
Propably i´m better off when completly re-installing win7 :S
@edit: i could simply create a new admin account and make my current account to a standart user? So i wouldnt loose any of my settings/need to copy something to a new user? -
-
Bah, LUA isn't worth it. UAC is plenty.
Uac
Discussion in 'Security and Anti-Virus Software' started by zakazak, Mar 29, 2011.