It is Easy to Make a Big Improvement in Windows Security

A recent article at Forbes.com covering an unpatched critical zero-day vulnerability that was being exploited had an interesting quote from Microsoft, “An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user".

So, the question is are you logged into your computer as a standard user or as an administrator. A standard user can not install software which dramatically reduces the risk of this vulnerability and many others we will see throughout the year.

To change your daily account to a standard user first create a new user as an Administrator. Next login as with the new administrator account and change your account to a standard user. Now login as you normally would. When administration rights are required a dialogue box (an example is shown below) will open for you to enter the administrator account password. You can also right click on items in the start menu and select More > Run as administrator if there is an application that requires that level of access.

This support article contains the detailed steps to setup the new administrator account:

To change your account to a standard user, while logged in with the new administrator account, select your account under Settings > Accounts> Other Users then click Change account type.

In the window that opens using the drop-down list select Standard User then click OK to complete the process.

This small change has little impact your day to day workflow and will provide a big improvement in Security.