| Author | Messages | |
TG
Posts:296
 | | 01/13/2010 7:50 PM |
| Hi Joe, can you point me to those KB articles? I am not even sure what to bing for.
I have some weird stuff happening that may be explained by the one to many transformation.
Thank you, Tony.
Tony Gordon Windows 2003 & 2000 MCSE, Windows 2003 MCSA, PMP ITS Infrastructure Engineering Hewitt Associates | 100 Half Day Road | Lincolnshire, IL 60069 | USA Tel 847.295.5000 x37892 | Fax 847.883.7892 tony dot gordon at hewitt dot tld | www.hewitt.com P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
From: joe <listmail@joeware.net> To: activedir@mail.activedir.org Date: 01/13/2010 11:32 AM Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Poll - what account lockout settings are in use? Sent by: activedir-owner@mail.activedir.org
IMO, the idea for lockout is to prevent brute force hacking, not make it so people can?t work if they can?t remember their password right off or their PDA screws up during syncing. This is a common issue in many environments, the various security groups seem to like to dictate a policy that seems secure and intelligent on paper but doesn?t really reflect what the real intent and reality is. You don?t want your security policy to result in a DOS attack vector which it often seems to become. You could argue (some have including myself on occasion) that *any* lockout policy fits that description. I know of several companies right now that I could blow up major apps supporting hundreds of thousands of users by simply forcing a specific account to get locked out in their environments. That is silly exposure IMO.
Also from the reality standpoint? The way the auth system works in Windows, a single auth attempt at the keyboard can result in multiple backend attempts by the security providers. It is conceivable that you could lock out a user with a 5 bad count setting with a single bad attempt. In fact for a long time there were several key MSKB?s about 3 backend attempts occurring for 1 keyboard attempt using all default MSFT software.
If you look at what I think this is truly intended to help with? brute force attacks or viruses, the application is going to send 50 bad attempts within seconds, then the account will lock out for 5 minutes. If this is a true brute force or virus issue, the account will remain locked for most of any given hour and at best the application will get 12*50 password attempts. That really isn?t a lot and if a hacker can get past someone?s password within just thousands of attempts then it is likely you need to better educate your users on passwords or start enforcing longer more complex passwords. Also, I would expect that you would be aware of these thousands of attempts coming in either from a pissed off user or your monitoring and do something about it from another angle.
If this is to prevent someone from manually guessing someone?s password, 50 cracks at it every 5 minutes is better than 5 every 30 minutes but again, if someone?s password can be guessed that easily. You have some other options you need to look into.
Over the years I have put in many DCRs to the auth folks at MSFT to help come up with better solutions in this space. Some examples are if the same password is coming in over and over again, it doesn?t count against the bad password count and if the bad attempts are coming from a single source, that machine is blocked via ipsec from touching the server (because these attempts could go against DCs, Servers, or workstations right?) it is banging against until it stops for some period or there is admin intervention.
joe
-- O'Reilly Active Directory Fourth Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad4e.htm
From: activedir-owner@mail.activedir.org [ mailto:activedir-owner@mail.activedir.org] On Behalf Of Castillo, Daniel (Directory Services) Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 11:30 AM To: activedir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Poll - what account lockout settings are in use?
I might be a little paranoid about this but 50 logon attempts seems to be a little high to me? and then getting the account unlocked by its own at such short time can make things worst? just think about a virus or a hacker? we?re pretty much giving him much opportunities to break down. I am much on the 5 wrong passwords the must and then reach your helpdesk to get this fixed, of course you gotta look at facts like your provisioning system, schema security, nature of business and of course available resources Just my two cents.
~D~
From: activedir-owner@mail.activedir.org [ mailto:activedir-owner@mail.activedir.org] On Behalf Of Ruston, Neil Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 10:23 AM To: activedir@mail.activedir.org Subject: [ActiveDir] Poll - what account lockout settings are in use?
I?d like to hold a straw poll and ask for feedback regarding the values used for the following Account Lockout settings. Naturally, if this is deemed too sensitive to provide, I fully understand J I have suggested: LockoutBadCount = 50 ResetLockoutCount = 30 LockoutDuration = 30 What have others implemented?
Many thanks, neil Neil Ruston CREDIT SUISSE +44 (0) 20 7883 3779 * neil.ruston@credit-suisse.com
============================================================================== Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.credit-suisse.com/legal/en/disclaimer_email_ib.html ==============================================================================
The information contained in this e-mail and any accompanying documents may contain information that is confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, or if this message has been addressed to you in error, please immediately alert the sender by reply e-mail and then delete this message, including any attachments. Any dissemination, distribution or other use of the contents of this message by anyone other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. All messages sent to and from this e-mail address may be monitored as permitted by applicable law and regulations to ensure compliance with our internal policies and to protect our business. E-mails are not secure and cannot be guaranteed to be error free as they can be intercepted, amended, lost or destroyed, or contain viruses. You are deemed to have accepted these risks if you communicate with us by e-mail.
| | | |
|
|