Looking for reasons not to rename administrator password

29 Mar 2005 4:47 PM

cleb1

We are running server 2000. My supervisor wants to rename the administrators
login and he wants to keep the administrator account but give it zero access.
I really do not want to do this. I think the administrator account is too
important to mess with. I feel if you have a good enogh password policy and
change the password often enough then there will not be a problem. He wants
reasons why we should not make this change. I am looking for reasons as to
why we should not make this change. Any help is greatly appreciated.

29 Mar 2005 5:05 PM

Jud

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"cleb1" <cl***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:49BD15F7-D246-4183-9251-356124C39F93@microsoft.com...
> We are running server 2000. My supervisor wants to rename the
administrators
> login and he wants to keep the administrator account but give it zero
access.
> I really do not want to do this. I think the administrator account is too
> important to mess with. I feel if you have a good enogh password policy
and
> change the password often enough then there will not be a problem. He
wants
> reasons why we should not make this change. I am looking for reasons as
to
> why we should not make this change. Any help is greatly appreciated.

As long as there is at least 1other account that has administrator access
then changing the name and setting the rights to zero is a good idea,
most hackers know the account "Administrator" and therefore only have to
guess the password, removing or renaming the admin account
doubles the work the hacker has.

As your supervisor and someone higher up the company I would trust his
judgement.

Jud

29 Mar 2005 6:35 PM

Nick Moore

The only thing I can think of to be aware of when messing with the
administrator account is services, make sure no services have been assigned
to logon with the Administrator account specifically.

Nick

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"Jud" wrote:

>
> "cleb1" <cl***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:49BD15F7-D246-4183-9251-356124C39F93@microsoft.com...
> > We are running server 2000. My supervisor wants to rename the
> administrators
> > login and he wants to keep the administrator account but give it zero
> access.
> > I really do not want to do this. I think the administrator account is too
> > important to mess with. I feel if you have a good enogh password policy
> and
> > change the password often enough then there will not be a problem. He
> wants
> > reasons why we should not make this change. I am looking for reasons as
> to
> > why we should not make this change. Any help is greatly appreciated.
>
> As long as there is at least 1other account that has administrator access
> then changing the name and setting the rights to zero is a good idea,
> most hackers know the account "Administrator" and therefore only have to
> guess the password, removing or renaming the admin account
> doubles the work the hacker has.
>
> As your supervisor and someone higher up the company I would trust his
> judgement.
>
> Jud
>
>
>