Account Types 4.4

Question 1

User Accounts

Answer 1

An account on a computer associated with an individual. The computer associates the user with a specific ID number. Storage and files can be private to that user, even if others are using the same computer. A user account also has limited access to the OS. This is the account type most people will use. Most of our user community will use these.

Question 2

Shared and Generic Accounts

Answer 2

Shared accounts, used by more than one person. These are guest logins, or anonymous logins. The problem with these is that you don’t know exactly who is logging on, and this account has equal access no matter who is using it. It’s difficult to determine what privileges to give it. If you have to password change this account, everyone who uses the account must be notified of the change. This means people will write passwords down which can create password compromise. Best practice, don’t use these.

Question 3

Service Accounts

Answer 3

These are internal accounts used by the OS or used by services offered by the OS. You may see these used by a web server or database server. These are only usable by the OS, not users. Access can be defined for a specific service. Some of these accounts have a user name and pass.

Question 4

Privileged Accounts

Answer 4

Elevated access to one or more systems. The Admin or Root accounts. It has complete access to the system. This account should not be used for normal administration, user accounts should be used. This account needs to be highly secured with strong password and two factor authentication with frequent password changes.