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Unf, XP Home Gust Accounts .. security.

Postby oldmanlinc » Thu Jan 31, 2002 3:39 pm

Stumbled upon this as I was just doing some reading. I found it interesting, it gives me something to do when I get home, heh. Odd Behavior in Windows XP Home (Security Vulnerability, Shares).. Summary The Guest account in Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional (when not joined on a domain) serves several special functions that relate to security and network shares. Thus if you in the Control Panel, turn off the Guest account (which removes the listing of the Guest account from the Fast User Switching Welcome screen) the Guest account will not be disabled. This would open the host to attack through the Guest account. Details An unexpected behavior has been observed when configuring Windows XP Home Edition. It appears that disabling the Guest account (from the User Accounts tool) only removes the Log-On Local right. Guest users are still able to connect to shared resources across the network. Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q300489 describes this behavior and states that it is by design. This could lead to a compromising of the host, since Guest users are able to access shared directories, and store files there. Workaround: Change the password of the Guest account to a difficult to guess one. SO, has you can tell, this could be BAD, especially for use people with networks, and even people w/o them... so, I hope this helped atleast one other person besides me out. :smile: unf, also I am running Professional.. I am going to try this and see if it also affects Prof version, too, not just Home. Ciao! -Adam <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Adam on 2002-01-31 08:26 ]</font>
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