How in the Tech

Improving security in Windows 7 by renaming Administrator and Guest accounts

By Adam Myers ⋅ May 26, 2010 ⋅ Tags: Security, Windows 7

Microsoft received a lot of positive press when they proclaimed their recommitment to ensuring security would be a main focus in their products moving forward. The consumers got a brief introduction to the initiate with Vista, where we saw changes such as User Account Control and other security-conscious features. Ignoring the initial venom towards UAC, what we are now left with in Windows 7 is necessary and aligns Windows with most of it’s competitors when dealing with raising user access rights within the system.

In Vista and Windows 7, the user is forced to create a user account rather than use the native administrator account. The rationale behind this is if a would-be hacker does not know the username of the account, it’s that much harder to crack. However, both Vista and 7 still ship with accounts under the usernames of administrator and guest – with their usage obvious. Even if the accounts are disabled, which they typically are, it still provides a first-step in remote exploit. A vulnerability may exist that allows for the enabling or disabling of the administrator account, for example. While you could out and out delete them, I’d suggest otherwise and instead, just rename the accounts to something different and still keep them disabled.

In the Start->Search look for and execute Local Security Policy.

In the left-hand panel, navigate to Local Policies -> Security Options.

Now in the right-hand panel you should notice two options: Accounts: Rename administrator account and Accounts: Rename guest account. Right-click on either policy as appropriate and choose Properties.

Rename the account to whatever you desire. To Windows, user accounts are actually referenced by a security identifier or SID not the actual username. This facility is what allows you to rename accounts without having the system underneath break down.

The process can then be repeated for the other account; Guest in this example. By renaming both accounts, you are now able to tick-off one more box in your check-list of secure computing.