Newsletter Archives

• Brute force vs. local admins

  Posted on October 24, 2022 at 02:42 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  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).

  On Security Administrator account, Brute-force cracking, Local account, Newsletters, On Security, Patch Lady Posts

• Freeware Spotlight — Alternate Password Generator

  Posted on November 1, 2020 at 20:00 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  There’s never an occasion when a simple password is acceptable for an online account.

  The days of “[insert cat name]123” and “[insert kid name][insert birthdate]” are over — especially when applied to more than one online site. It’s likely that any short and easy-to-remember password you can think of has already been added to massive databases — some nefarious, some informational — of stolen credentials.

  OlderGeeks.com hosts several utilities from Alternate Tools, but today we’re looking at Alternate Password Generator (APG). It’s a free program that creates secure passwords.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.43.0 (2020-11-02).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Brute-force cracking, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Password checking, Password generators