Poll: What UAC Level do you use?

[MagicAndre1981]

The way I see it is it's only a matter of time before these methods are used against us.

when Windows 7 hits RTM and will be sold this will happen

I think I'll write a short text (in the "For Dummies" Style so that average users understand it) about UAC tommorow ( what UAC is and how it works) so that all people to disable it change their opinion.

[cluberti]

Well, that is true, although there's not much you can do if you run code that has autoelevate at the default level. This is the security vs usability meme all over again. You get the folks complaining about UAC, but the vendor needing to use the tool in their products, so you get "autoelevation" by signed binaries to bypass things the user would do manually, except that creates potential for abuse. I suppose they could fix it, but by it's very design Windows allows injection into other .dlls and processes this way (they're using the Win32 API!), so I'm not sure what you could do short of use TPM to check binaries on execution to make sure they don't change once in memory. It would be a pain, and not everyone (in fact, I'd wager most people who will end up running Win7) don't have a TPM chip in their motherboards to enable it.

I don't like it, but I guess you shouldn't use UAC as a security boundary by itself anyway. I'd guess antivirus could catch this with heuristics, although again I'm not sure how feasible it is on older machines.

[DigeratiPrime]

Another thing I noticed is although the author there states that this elevation trick could still work if the target process had ASLR enabled - I don't think it's been demonstrated.

Also for those that are concerned about security running as a limited user is still sound AFAIK.

[bj-kaiser]

Security vs. Usability:

someone explain to me why there has to be an autoelevation?

If I know what I am doing, I can as well elevate the program on my own. With SuRun it works like this: run "surun program.exe" or you can "restart as admin" from the programs system menu.

(I am not thinking SuRun is perfectly secure, but the way it works (unless you enable its own autoelevation options, I disabled on my machine) looks more sane than MS UAC IMHO)

Edited June 16, 2009 by bj-kaiser

[cluberti]

Security vs. Usability:

someone explain to me why there has to be an autoelevation?

If I know what I am doing, I can as well elevate the program on my own.

This is what people whined about most on Vista, and why UAC on Vista got disabled most often. People want the system to be secure, but they don't want to be bothered by it - hence autoelevation for tasks you are expected to run on your own (although regedit.exe wasn't signed, which is odd).

[CoffeeFiend]

someone explain to me why there has to be an autoelevation?

Do you seriously expect end-users to use surun and the like? Besides, most people seem to think just getting a prompt (allow/deny) is already too much of a hassle, now ask them do run things from the command line instead, and see how that'll turn out.

[steviewonder]

First thing I do is turn off UAC as its a big hassle I have a hardware firewall as well as Software firewall which is good enough, this type of security is not needed. (In my opinion)

[cluberti]

Also note this will only affect users running as admin anyway, although by default OOBE puts you in this group. I'll be very glad when the default behavior for new users (all new users, not just the second one on) are regular users, and the admin account *isn't* disabled so that this *does* work properly.

[bj-kaiser]

someone explain to me why there has to be an autoelevation?

Do you seriously expect end-users to use surun and the like? Besides, most people seem to think just getting a prompt (allow/deny) is already too much of a hassle, now ask them do run things from the command line instead, and see how that'll turn out.

I see, someone didnt read my post to the end.

If I know what I am doing, I can as well elevate the program on my own. With SuRun it works like this: run "surun program.exe" or you can "restart as admin" from the programs system menu.

I dont know if "system menu" was the right phrase, what I mean is the context menu you get when you right-click a programs title bar.

Hope that makes it clear.

[MagicAndre1981]

people who disable UAC read this:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=135143

[Guest]

people who disable UAC read this:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=135143

Pretty much new everything there but I will still turn it off. I don't do malware.

[ajua]

I have it disabled and it will always be for me. In Vista too.

The reason is that I don't want to get bothered with programs I use and TRUST. For everything else, there are Firewalls (software or hardware and Anti-virus applications. I use Hardware FW + Anti-virus/Software FW (KIS 2010).

For the average user UAC is a good measure against common threats like malware or spyware.

[Idontwantspam]

I've taken a rather unique approach to UAC, which I'm actually quite proud of.

As some of you may know, there's an option buried deep within secpol.msc to require even administrators to authenticate with their password when presented with a UAC prompt, the same as how unprivileged users are usually required to. I looked around a bit, and saw that the UAC response is determined by a registry variable:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin"=dword:(value)

Setting it to 00000005 puts it to the default, secure desktop, prompt for consent for applications that need elevation only setting.

Setting it to 00000001 puts it into "paranoid" mode, where it prompts for any and all system changes, and requires the user's password.

I have two registry files, one to set it to default mode, and one to set it to paranoid mode. I then have two scheduled tasks. One detects the eventlog event for disconnecting from a network, and it sets the system to paranoid mode. This way, when I'm away from my home network, if someone walks up to my computer when I didn't lock it, they can't do any major changes without my password, or by sticking a USB flash drive with a virus in, etc. The 2nd task runs when connecting to a network, but is set to only run when connecting to my home network. It sets it to normal mode, so that at home everything is simple and un-annoying. It works great and is secure both in the way UAC intended and in the additional protection of password protected elevation.

[WHPratt]

I turn it OFF. I use Kaspersky IS in the interactive mode. That MORE than makes up for the turned off UAC.

[Thunderbolt 2864]

I turned it off, of course. Hate it when it keeps prompting you when you want to perform a simple task. Couldn't care less about "security vulnerabilities" or whatever, don't really see any huge threats.