hfred Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 I have been running under admin. for a long time and I have heard that running as Admin. all the time is a secrity concern. I have a limited acount in OS X but I want my sort name to be the name of my Admin. short name. I tired to change the Admin. Sort name to something else but it is greyed out. Any way around this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the evn show Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 1) Make new account - copy all your home folder over to that new account - the name isn't important but it has to be an administrator, it's temporary. 2) Delete the first administrator account 3) make new account, with the name you want and copy your data over. 4) "Get info" info on the files, change the owner to the new user (if it isn't already) and run repair permissions just to be safe. log into new account. Running OS X as administrator is not the same as running Windows as Administrator but there are some security concerns: - admin users have the ability to "sudo" which means if someone cracks your admin password they can do things as root - or enable the root account and use that. They'll actually need to be able to type your admin password though. - admin users have read/write access to /system, /library and /applications so it's possible to accidently corrupt or delete files that are used by all users. For this an attacker just needs for you to be logged in, they don't need to know your password. - admin users can create/modify existing user accounts, so again if someone gets your admin password they can raise hell. Again they'll need to know your password. Obviously not using admin means you can't accidently break 'public' directories, and it makes it impossible for someone to look over your shoulder and steal your password - or wait for you to walk away and use the machine. Just remember to make sure the administrator password is STRONG: a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols (like OPT+K) otherwise this is all for not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diffused Mind Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 I thought /System was protected no matter what and can only be edited by root. :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the evn show Posted March 16, 2004 Share Posted March 16, 2004 yeah, you're right. /system is read only unless you sudo or enable root and log in that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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