Yeah there are. I've been watching this thread and considering the
possibility of responding. I usually prefer to keep a low profile. Anyway I
have seen two successful implementations in large enterprise environments
(well over that 10,000+ mark). In both cases however I wasn't in the
development of what was implemented. I did however have the opportunity to
see the end result.
In one implementation there is a central website where a user can go. This
website has the "packages" that are allowed to be installed. There is even a
package for setting up a printer. I'm a little less knowledgeable about the
implementation on this one, but I do know that the web site could connect to
and perform operations on the end users machine. This I'm sure involved
quite a bit of programming expertise.
The second implementation also had a website. But this website didn't
interact with the end users machine as the other site did. Instead the user
could download and install the package if they had the rights to it. The
package itself was created using the SMS installer. The package even checked
to make sure the machine was running a company build, and created a record
of the package install. And internal server running samaurize was also
involved with the tracking I believe.
Regardless of the two scenarios, both cases had "exceptions" where the end
user was given admin rights. In one case it was when they were traveling to
places like Kazakstan (spelling?) where support wasn't available if they
were to get into trouble. In the other case there are always power users in
a position that can make a case for it.
Anyway, I know this isn't a great step in the right direction. I mostly put
it out to say that yes it is possible, and I've seen it done. But in both
cases I'm sure many people were involved with very strong skill sets. Take
it for what it's worth.
-Stephen
-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Venema [mailto:dick@venema-advies.nl]
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 6:45 AM
To: focus-ms@securityfocus.com
Subject: RE: Impact of removing administrative rights in an enterprise
running XP
Is it not supposed to be an protection measure against any virus and
spyware.
We are supporting networks with around 10 users.
If I understand it well enough, it is impossible to manage pc's without
direct admin rights.
The most isseus are with installing applications.
I tought that Microsoft and with them many other people almost ordered
everybody to get rid of those admin rights.
But from the reactions I hear, everybody complains. Are there success
stories?
Dick Venema
Venema Advies
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
Van: "Robert D. Holtz" <robert.d.holtz@gmail.com>
Aan: "'McLaurin, Timothy'" <tMcLaurin@citi-us.com>; "'Jon R. Kibler'"
<Jon.Kibler@aset.com>; "focus-ms@securityfocus.com"
<focus-ms@securityfocus.com>
CC: "'Drew Simonis'" <simonis@myself.com>
Verzonden: 28-7-06 15:37
Onderwerp: RE: Impact of removing administrative rights in an enterprise
running XP
I was involved in ~1,500 users and it also was an amazing exercise in
futility. The previous paragraph was on the money.
It really bit us hard when we had a virus infestation and the patch from
Microsoft needed the user to have admin rights in order to fix the problem.
-----Original Message-----
From: McLaurin, Timothy [mailto:tMcLaurin@citi-us.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 3:50 PM
To: Jon R. Kibler; focus-ms@securityfocus.com
Cc: Drew Simonis
Subject: RE: Impact of removing administrative rights in an enterprise
running XP
I've done it for about 2,000 users and it was brutal. The technical
aspects of it was bad but even worse were the political. People can't
get used to the idea of not being able to do what they want when they
want. Especially the executive types. And we still gave them admin
accounts, they just had to use Run As... Support isn't all that easy
too because we had no idea who had what, and what was essential for
their job function. There are all kinds of stupid applications that
call for admin rights and once they are taken away it doesn't work
anymore. Filemon, Regmon, and SetACL were a staple during that time
period.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon R. Kibler [mailto:Jon.Kibler@aset.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 11:09 AM
To: focus-ms@securityfocus.com
Cc: Drew Simonis
Subject: Re: Impact of removing administrative rights in an enterprise
running XP
Drew Simonis wrote:
Hello all,
I wonder if anyone on the list who might work for a good sized
enterprise (10,000+ seats) has gone through the excercise of removing
administrative rights from the user community?
Aside from the effort to inventory all applications and ensure that
they work with restricted permissions, I forsee that such an effort
would likely require changes to the entire support model. Instead of
relying on users to install their own software, it would need to be done
for them. New hardware would require intevention, etc.
If someone has completed this, was support a major new burden, or was
it not as difficult as it might be? If it was, how much of a burden was
it (+ desktop support headcount? +helpdesk calls?)?
-Ds
Drew,
Have not done it in as large of an organization as you indicate, but
have TRIED to do it in smaller organizations -- and ran into MANY brick
walls. It is still a work-in-progress! Things are better, but we're not
there yet by any stretch at any organization that I am working with.
The primary issue is that A LOT of applications assume/require
administrative privilege to work. In reality, you can probably get
many/most to run with less than admin priv, but figuring out what is the
minimum required is not an easy task. And don't expect the application
vendor to be any help either!
Trying to remove local admin priv is a trial-and-error process. A lot of
apps will work most of the time, then one seldom-used feature breaks it.
You would be surprised the apps that require privilege to run... many
big name ones, such as the Intuit product line. There was a discussion
on DShield a few months back on this topic, and several people named
names of applications with privilege problems (but nothing close to
scratching the surface!).
Good luck.
Oh, BTW, as you try this task, publishing a list of the required minimum
privilege for each application would be a great help to everyone. I
wanted to do that, but my clients all objected.
Jon
--
Jon R. Kibler
Chief Technical Officer
Advanced Systems Engineering Technology, Inc.
Charleston, SC USA
(843) 849-8214
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