Saturday, May 12, 2012

Benefits for Organizations when Users are Not Local Administrators


There are a number of benefits to organizations when users do not have local administrator rights on their desktop systems. Desktop management costs are reduced because the endpoint is more controlled, compliance objectives are met and your distributed desktop environment is more secure.

Better Protection against Malware

When the locally logged on user does not have local administrative rights, the programs and processes that the user runs do not have rights to modify core operating system files and settings. This reduces the surface area of an attack from malware. Malware that runs on the system in the context of the logged on user is not able to change core system settings. While this does not mean that the system does n’t need other security software such as firewall and anti-virus, removal of local admin rights does provide a more secure environment.

For example, there are many benefits when running the browser and mail client in a mode that does not have local admin rights. As users interact with web sites and data sources that are not necessarily trusted, malware that may be encountered is not as likely to be able to make unauthorized changes and introduce system instabilities.

Every month Microsoft releases a wide range of software updates (also known as patch Tuesday). Many of these updates are security related. A large percentage of software updates that are released by Microsoft every “patch Tuesday”

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