Passwords and Security

Just ten minutes before I was supposed to leave for work yesterday,  I had this remote urge to get back Hardy running on my desktop. I had it installed but because of a windows re-install, the GRUB boot menu was overwritten. So all that I had to do was to re-install Grub!

 Powered the CPU , inserted Gutsy’s Live CD, logged into the desktop and fired a few commands in the terminal. The shell gave in a success message and I quickly rebooted to check if the Grub was installed. And boy, it did get installed right in the first go 🙂 !

I had to catch the 10:45 service so I powered the CPU off and ran my might to reach in time. Post work when I get back home and turn on the Desktop to check back on sweet old Ubuntu, I’m in for a surprise – I didn’t remember the Password for my Admin acccount ! Even before my instincts to re-install the OS took control, I rebooted and logged into Windoze. Googling a bit had even more surprises in store – A few posts in the Ubuntu Forum stated a minutes walk to Glory – You could override the admin’s password by a few quick commands! And till date, I was thinking Linux gave me all the security in the world. How wrong I was ! Or was I ?

This only made me think if Linux had a backgate entry, Bill’s Windoze should as well. Again thanks to Sergey and Larry, I realized hacking the windoze admin password was a cake walk too! Damn, it took me so many years to realise that. It was no damn rocket science!

This incident forked out a few salient points

1) If there’s a password – It can and will be hacked. It’s only a matter of when and how!

2) Linux is still a better vault when it comes to data security- Check this link

3) If you’re really worried about data security, You have every reason to be! It’s a murky world out there 😉 !

4) We’ve got one of the best processors – the Brain. High time we knew how to use it effectively 🙂 !