• Brute force vs. local admins

    ON SECURITY

    Susan Bradley

    By Susan Bradley

    Microsoft recently added new protections to ensure that ransomware operators can’t use a brute-force attack to discover the Local Administrator account’s password.

    The company introduced a new policy that provides “account lockouts for Administrator accounts.” Beginning with the October 11, 2022, or later Windows cumulative updates, a local policy will be available to enable Local Administrator account lockouts. As described in “Account lockout available for Local Administrators” (KB5020282), the capability is available for almost all versions of Windows dating back to Windows 7 and Server 2008.

    Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.43.0, 2022-10-24).