Account lockout

Account lockout is a feature of Microsoft Windows security that locks a user account if a number of failed login attempts occur within a specified amount of time. It is not the feature of LAlarm. However LAlarm depends on Account Lockout, the security feature of Windows, for triggering a certain actions such as data recovery, data destruction, theft responses. So if you want to use data recovery, data destruction and theft response, you should able account lockout and its audit policy (detail is described in the manual).

If you want to enable account lockout on your computer, you should know the potential problems. You could lockout your computer by a mistake and unable to access your computer for some period of time. Yet worse, data recovery, data destruction and theft response actions will occur if you configured LAlarm in such way.

Here are account lockout resources:

• Implementing and Troubleshooting Account Lockout
• Your User Account May Be Prematurely Locked Out on XP
• Account lockout problem on windows XP (discussion)

Windows XP logon password is a must

If you are using LAlarm on Windows XP, you should enable Windows logo password if it not enabled. Otherwise a false (theft) alarm could occur. The windows logon password also protects your computer and data against unauthorized access.

See: How to enable Windows XP logon password

Win+L alternative

If your computer keyboard is old and does not have Windows logo key, you can not press Win+L to lock your computer. But there are some alternatives.

Using Task Manager:

1. Click Start
2. Select Run
3. Enter "Taskmgr" (without quotation marks)
   
4. Click Ok
5. Select Shutdown > Lockcomputer
   

Using a run feature:

1. Click Start
2. Select Run
3. Enter "rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation" (without quotation marks)
4. Click Ok

Using a run shortcut:

You can create a shortcut instead, so that you just click on a shortcut whenever you want to lock the computer. The following instruction creates a shortcut icon on your desktop that has the equivalent function as pressing Win+L.

1. Right-click on the desktop
2. Select New > Shortcut.
3. Enter "rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation" (without quotation marks)
4. Click Next.
5. Enter "LOCK" (without quotation marks)
6. Click Finish.

Furthermore you can assign a hotkey (combination) to the shortcut, for example, Alt-Ctrl-L. For detailed instruction, please see: How to Assign a Shortcut Key to a Start Menu Item

Benefits of folder encryption

Folder encryption encrypt folder level while full disk encryption encrypt the entire drive or disk. Full disk encryption is not effect against hackers or viruses because they penetrated your computer, full disk encryption already decrypted your drive. The security door is widely openly. However folder encryption can provide protection that full disk encryption can not provide. Folder encryption can still protect data even though a hacker and a virus try to steal your data. However folder encryption could be powerless if the data that a hacker or a virus trying to steal was already decrypted at the time of theft attempt.

Why destroy encrypted data?

Although data encryption is one of the most important data protection methods, there is no guarantee that 1) the password (or key) will always remain confidential and 2) the encryption will protect the data permanently (in other word for an infinite period of time) even if the password always remains confidential. Destroying data allows the data to be protected permanently. Hence, it provides another protection layer to the data whether or not the data is encrypted

How to hide user names from the logon screen

Hiding user names enhances security. Attackers have to guess both username and password. It is also useful when you have a forced account setup in your computer.

You can hide user names by editing the registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList

For more info see:
http://winhowto.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-hide-users-in-windows-vista-xp.html



Quick Links: Forced Account

How to create a forced account.

A forced account is a computer user account that is configured to destroy sensitive data in a forced logon or a logon as a result of forced username and password disclosure. When someone logs onto a forced account in your computer, your computer will destroy sensitive data. Thus a forced account provides another layer of protection for the data in your computer. The following steps create a user account, which you can use it as a forced user account.

1. Click Start and click Control Panel.
2. Click Add or remove user accounts under User Accounts and Family Safety.
3. Click Create a new account.
4. Type in a user name, which will be a forced user account name.
   
5. Select the account type: Standard
6. Click Create Account.
7. Select the account you just created.
8. Click Create password button
9. Type in a password for the user account and an option password hint.
10. Click Create password button

The above instruction is applicable to Windows Vista and Windows 7. Windows XP has an equivalent instruction but each step is not exactly the same as the above.

Quick Links: Forced Account