Water Resources Discipline ITAC Activities

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itac, here is the web page

http://bwtst.usgs.gov/os/xp/xppro/post/adminuse.html

Paul and Thanh,

in your paragraph below, the most critical statement i will highlight in red below and i ask you to consider showing more prominently or highlighting in some way.

i think it is also important to tell people why this is a security risk, because when you people are doing email, etc. no one should have admin. rights to minimize risks coming in from email. i think soem bullets from your powerpoint would help highlight this succinctly.

i also think a title or bullet something like: "handling admin rights for laptops" would get more of the right attention to the subject.

i forgot to mention when we were discussing this, but some direct email to SA's on this topic might be warranted.

from the web page above [my red highlighting]

Administrator Credentials
The architectural change from Windows 95/98/ME to Windows XP can cause legacy programs, originally written for these older operating systems to act differently.  One of the improvements in Windows XP is better security for files and registry settings.  This improvement, however can cause some legacy programs to work improperly for non-administrative users.  For this reason, System Administrators (SAs) may be asked by their users to be given administrative rights to their local machine.  Best Practice is not to grant administrative rights to users, however, SAs may exercise discretion in granting these rights as the situation dictates. Several alternative methods can be used instead of granting administrative rights, the following tools and strategies can be used by administrators to make legacy applications compatible with Windows XP.  

Sandy (Alex K.) Williamson akwill@usgs.gov 253-428-3600x2683 (-3614fax) C:253-376-8273 h: (253) 531-1481
US Geological Survey, Tacoma WA NAWQA Nat'l Data Base Team Leader water.usgs.gov/nawqa/data