Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software • Hacker News Board

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#11

Post by Xylakant » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 12:14 PM UTC

Aardwolf wrote: post #9

nodata wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. That would only be true assuming you have a knowledgable attacker. For most cases physical access definitely does not mean game over.

Yes it is: remove harddrive. Put harddrive on other PC. Read contents of harddrive. Or even reboot the existing PC with an OS on USB or optical drive. Unless the HD is encrypted of course, but that is not what this article and password is about.

Well, given that you can install a keylogger on the usb keyboard nowadays, it is - even with encrypted harddrives. Or you can freeze the RAM, remove it and read the encryption key.

However, encryption makes things quite a bit harder.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#12

Post by zapu » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 12:48 PM UTC

Check this DEFCON presentation for Windows tricks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi0qUZCz6F0

Interesting demos start at about 20 minutes in.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#13

Post by moconnor » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 12:49 PM UTC

hrrsn wrote: post #2

Physical access is always game over.

There's an important difference between being able to unobtrusively compromise a machine by appearing to use it normally and between opening up the case and removing the hard drive, something that attracts attention in almost any setting.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#14

Post by nwh » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 12:55 PM UTC

Same goes for Macs really. Unless you have a firmware password set, resetting the root password is a few keystrokes away.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#15

Post by zapu » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 12:57 PM UTC

nwh wrote: post #14

Same goes for Macs really. Unless you have a firmware password set, resetting the root password is a few keystrokes away.

Isn't it the case with any other nix or bsd system? Boot into single user, mount filesystem, change password. I have been mostly working on Windows lately, but that's how I remember that.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#16

Post by nwh » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 1:01 PM UTC

zapu wrote: post #15

nwh wrote: post #14

Same goes for Macs really. Unless you have a firmware password set, resetting the root password is a few keystrokes away.

Isn't it the case with any other nix or bsd system? Boot into single user, mount filesystem, change password. I have been mostly working on Windows lately, but that's how I remember that.

Pretty much, but OSX provides a nice GUI to do it.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#17

Post by Deestan » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 1:04 PM UTC

antoncohen wrote: post #7

I can't believe they haven't fixed that. I discovered that the login prompt ran with system-level privileges in Windows 95. I used it to play Duke3D in computer class when I was 14. You could press Ctl+Alt+Del to bring up Task Manager, from Task Manager you could choose to run a command, and run explorer.exe. It would start Windows with full admin access.

The article assumes you have enough access to boot the computer from an alternative medium.

They can't just "fix" that short of forcing full disk encryption.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#18

Post by Deestan » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 1:16 PM UTC

moconnor wrote: post #13

hrrsn wrote: post #2

Physical access is always game over.

There's an important difference between being able to unobtrusively compromise a machine by appearing to use it normally and between opening up the case and removing the hard drive, something that attracts attention in almost any setting.

The article assumes you have access to reboot the computer from a CDROM or USB stick, which amounts to pretty much the same attack vector.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#19

Post by antoncohen » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 1:30 PM UTC

Deestan wrote: post #17

antoncohen wrote: post #7

I can't believe they haven't fixed that. I discovered that the login prompt ran with system-level privileges in Windows 95. I used it to play Duke3D in computer class when I was 14. You could press Ctl+Alt+Del to bring up Task Manager, from Task Manager you could choose to run a command, and run explorer.exe. It would start Windows with full admin access.

The article assumes you have enough access to boot the computer from an alternative medium. They can't just "fix" that short of forcing full disk encryption.

I was referring to the login GUI running with full privileges, meaning any time someone finds an arbitrary code execution vulnerability in the GUI they can get full admin access.

I wasn't referring to using a boot disk to reset a password. As far as I'm concerned that's a feature not a vulnerability, and it's a feature Windows makes unnecessarily hard to access.

Re: Reset a Windows 8 Password without using any third party software

#20

Post by EvanAnderson » Thu, Dec 13, 2012, 1:45 PM UTC

antoncohen wrote: post #7

I can't believe they haven't fixed that. I discovered that the login prompt ran with system-level privileges in Windows 95. I used it to play Duke3D in computer class when I was 14. You could press Ctl+Alt+Del to bring up Task Manager, from Task Manager you could choose to run a command, and run explorer.exe. It would start Windows with full admin access.

Windows 95 had no security model. There are no "system-level privileges" in Windows 95. If you could execute any code on the machine you "owned" it. There were some contrivances in the shell to attempt to limit user access, but nothing serious like the security architecture of Windows NT.