ViewPoint Computer Club
Many
new users unknowingly operate their computers as administrators when
using applications that open E-mail or access the Internet. This can
greatly increase the probability of receiving a virus or spyware.
You
can greatly decrease the risk by not doing your daily tasks as a
computer administrator. How do you know if you are operating as an
administrator? If you can install programs after you log on, you are
working as an administrator.
"I've said this many times, but I'll say it again, "Running with an
administrative account is dangerous to the health of your computer and
your data." So, whenever someone says they must operate their computers
as administrators, I always try to persuade them it's not the correct
thing to do from a security perspective. That said, every once in a
while I meet someone who has a valid reason. For example, I use one of
the computers in my office to install the latest daily build of
Windows, and I need to be an administrator to install the OS. However,
and this is a big point, I do not read e-mail, browse the Web, or
access the Internet in any form when running as an administrator on
that machine. And I do not do so because the Web is the source of most
of the nasty attacks today."
Michael Howard
Microsoft Security Engineering
November 15, 2004
Read the entire article at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972827.aspxIf
you find this article hard to understand, you probably should not try
to use the software discussed in the article. The safest thing to do is
to operate as an administrator only when necessary, such as when installing software or other operations which require administrator privileges.
You
can create a limited user account for your day to day work on the
computer . This will mean that, at times, you would have to log off
your limited user account and log on as administrator to accomplish a
task. While this can be inconvient at times, getting a virus or
spyware can be much more than inconvenient.