Google is very good at what it does. It automatically and systematically catalogues every document, image, web site or other data that is web accessible so that it can be quickly retrieved using the Google search engine. That includes potentially sensitive or confidential data that wasn't intended to be shared publicly. Google your own network or sites to identify possible security holes.
Hard drive space has gotten cheaper and the size of the drives has grown to enormous proportions. That is great for saving data, but makes it increasingly difficult to find what you're looking for when you need it. Enter the desktop search tools to help solve that problem.
One way for an attacker to scope out a target system and, particularly, to identify the Administrator account so they can focus their efforts on the account with the most privileges is to list, or enumerate, the SID's (serial identifiers) on a Windows machine.
Some experts say that renaming the Administrator account is pointless. Any worthy hacker knows that the true Administrator account has a unique identifier and how to find it. But, that doesn't mean you need to make it easy for the hackers who aren't worthy.
Microsoft Internet Explorer offers the AutoComplete feature to remember past entries and automatically pre-populate fields as you type to save you some time and effort. You may find it quite convenient, but having AutoComplete remember username or password information can pose a security risk.
Members of the Administrators group typically have full control to modify registry keys. Unwittingly executing a malware-infected or other questionable program with Administrator privileges can result in registry additions or edits which may adversely affect the system. To safeguard the registry without logging out you can use this trick.
Windows creates hidden Administrative Shares at the root of each drive and to the system root folder to allow administrators to remotely access the data. If a server or workstation will not be administered remotely or has no need for the Administrative Shares though, they should be removed so that they don't provide a potential attack vector for a hacker or malware to enter the system.
Installing an alarm system on your home or car can be an effective way of at least being alerted when some sort of intrusion has been attempted. Of course, they don't work very well when they aren't enabled. Windows XP comes with the means to detect and log security events so that you can monitor and respond to intrusions or attempted security breaches, however it is not enabled by default.
Given enough time and potential to try multiple username and password combinations an attacker might eventually succeed in compromising the security of a server or other computer. Account lockout policies allow you to set thresholds to automatically shut down an account if too many incorrect username and password combinations are attempted in order to protect the machine.
Windows XP offers the ability to save passwords for web sites and network resources. This can be very convenient as opposed to remembering and entering the username and password each time you need access, but it poses a security risk because anyone who has physical access to your computer would also be able to log into those sites using your saved credentials.
