Windows 10: Is a standard user account necessary for tight security and home user?

Thanks very much! *Smile

 

Yes, Matt's PC is the admin account and I'm able to access Matt's PC user folder from the standard Matt account without any prompt for admin privileges.

Maybe it has something to do with enabling a homegroup at some stage? The users of the standard account are able to access the files of in - Microsoft Community

By once does that mean you won't continually be prompted for the admin password?

Hmm funny, our laptop was definitely running a Microsoft account so I changed it to a local account and now all of the admin permissions are back in place. I can scan it for integrity violations just in case...

 

Yes, if you "once" take control of that folder, you have permission from then on, and you will never be prompted for the admin password again. I am not sure about the homegroup/networking, as I don't use it. Changing an account from an MS account to a local account will not change the security level - you still have to do that in Control Panel>Users.

 

Is it possible I took control of that folder? How would I have done that? I don't recall any prompts. If not where should I head next with this?

 

Quite possible.
Perhaps @fdegrove can help you get permissions set back to default? *Smile

 

Can you help me with this @fdegrove?

 

standard-level user account, and UAC at highest level, this is definitely good for security.
But people should be aware that some ransomware variants won't be stopped by this. Ransomware only needs low-level permissions to run.

 

I've got CryptoPrevent for ransomware's...

 

the truth is that the best protection, against virtually everything, is to check it on Virus Total before running it.
Sometimes, official site of a certain app is hacked, and the download is laced with malware. (This usually happens when the site is not HTTPS.) So always check before install...

 

So is Virus Total constantly monitoring apps from different websites?

 

Hi,

Sure.

Download and install subinacl.msi from this site:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/down....aspx?id=23510

Then copy and paste the following into notepad and save as acl.bat :

Run the batch file as admin and the accounts should be reset to their defaults.

Cheers,

 

No, I wrote a confusing post.
1 VT is "the place" where you can check any file that exists, and see if one or more of 54 participating antivirus engines considers it malicious. If only 1 or 2 flags it as bad, then it is probably a FP (false positive), or maybe it is a very, very fresh malware sample. But usually, such a low score means it is clean.

2 Downloading apps from websites: that is my personal paranoia. Sometimes, the FTP of a known and trusted site gets hacked, and criminals replace the regular download with a malicious one that looks and smells the same as the genuine one.
So even if you download from a site that you know and trust, it is still a good idea to check out the file on VT before running it.
VirusTotal - Free Online Virus, Malware and URL Scanner

 

Hi fdegrove,

Unfortunately there hasn't been any change, does the computer need to be rebooted afterwards? Have you got any other ideas?

 

Hi,

No, it shouldn't.
Unless I've overlooked something, no I don't have any other ideas at this point. Sorry.

Cheers, *Wink

 

No worries, I might set up a new thread to see if anyone else can help.