Lesson 8 - Chapter 2: Workstation and Mobile Device Security Flashcards
What are the 9 best practices for creating strong passwords?
- Don’t use dictionary words
- Don’t use names or places
- Set a minimum length
- Use a variety of character types
- Characters should not be in a predictable order (capital at front, numbers at end)
- Don’t use the names of things meaningful to you
- Don’t use any serial or memorable key sequences (keyboard closeness)
- Don’t use the same password at more than one account or website
- Use a password management app
What’s a dictionary attack?
A password-guessing app guesses every word in the dictionary
Passwords should be a minimum length of?
12 characters, preferably longer
What is serial/memorable key sequences?
sequences that appear together on a keyboard (close to each other in sequence)
like QWERTY, zxcvb, asdfg
What is local security policy?
A system admin can use this policy to set up workstations to require certain password policies
What’s the snap-in called for Local Security Policy?
secpol.msc
snap-in = individual utilities in MMC
What is enforce password history?
the maximum number of unique passwords used for your account before you’re able to use a previously used password
(Microsoft recommends 24 unique password changes before an old one can be used)
What is minimum password age?
the maximum number of days a password must be used before it can be changed again
0 = user can change the password anytime
What is minimum password length audit?
turns on an audit function that creates a log file entry each time a user creates a password less than a certain value
(<12, any passwords less than 12 characters will have a log file entry)
What is Relax Minimum Length Limits?
allow/disallows the minimum password length to be greater than 14 characters
What is store passwords using reversible encryption? What should you make sure to do with this setting?
The password stored with reversible encryption can be exposed by an attacker using advanced methods so MAKE SURE THIS SETTING IS DISABLED (disabled by default)
How do you set policies for multiple PCs at once?
use Active Directory Group policy
What is a boot password?
used on the motherboard’s firmware (BIOS/UEFI) setup utility to prevent booting the system by unauthorized folks
What is a supervisor password?
a password for the mobo firmware setup utility that prevents unauthorized users changing the settings
Can you boot directly into UEFI setup?
No for security reasons, but you can access it by triggering a special reboot that dumps you into the UEFI setup utility
What’s the difference between accessing the UEFI firmware and BIOS firmware?
Accessing UEFI starts from within Windows, accessing the BIOS is an external process (during boot)
What are the 5 possibilities of keys to press to access BIOS setup utility during bootup? (depends on the manufacturer of the motherboard)
- Del
- F2
- Esc
- F10
- F12
Encourage users to do what when they are going to step away from their PC?
Locking their desktop