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As the degree of privilege you get on a system goes up, your ability to persist attacks increases. In the limit you end up with cases where the malware is runni
by jerf 7y ago
As the degree of privilege you get on a system goes up, your ability to persist attacks increases. In the limit you end up with cases where the malware is running as a hypervisor, rendering Windows actually entirely incapable of seeing it or dealing with it. I seem to recall some countermeasures have been added but I don't recall all the details or know what the current status of that is, but I'm fairly sure that has has happened in the wild, not just a theoretical attack.
So even if someone gets exec on your user files, you'd still prefer them to be limited to your user and not running at higher priv levels. Even if 90% of the damage is done with access to your personal files, it still adds more damage with higher privs.
Plus this means user-level countermeasures like "run steam as a separate user" are useful; with escalation, that's not an effective defense. Also, if you've got multiple users on the computer, an attack that can't escalate privileges might ruin your day, but an attack that can escalate privileges might ruin your day and your spouse's day and anyone else in your family's day, so even in terms of "personal files" on a modern Windows system you can still be looking at more damage from an escalating attack.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoOf the people trying to say this is a big deal in any way, I must say that so far you are the only one to make any reasonable points. > So even if someone gets exec on your user files, you'd still prefer them to be limited to your user and not running at higher priv levels. Even if 90% of the damage is done with access to your personal files, it still adds more damage with higher privs. This is debatable, since whatever other damage they could do is something I'm not likely to care very much about compared to all my work, the whole reason I have a computer in the first place, being held for ransom or otherwise lost to me. > Plus this means user-level countermeasures like "run steam as a separate user" are useful; with escalation, that's not an effective defense. I suppose this is true, however I don't think any competent authority will tell you that simply running a program you don't trust as another user should ever be relied upon as a sandboxing mechanism anyway. > Also, if you've got multiple users on the computer, an attack that can't escalate privileges might ruin your day, but an attack that can escalate privileges might ruin your day and your spouse's day and anyone else in your family's day, so even in terms of "personal files" on a modern Windows system you can still be looking at more damage from an escalating attack. That's a fair point.
- ChrisSD 7y ago> I don't think any competent authority will tell you that simply running a program you don't trust as another user should ever be relied upon as a sandboxing mechanism anyway. You're right that merely using "runas" does not provide any additional security (at least none that can't be circumvented). However if you run an application in a separate desktop session under a separate user account that does not have admin access at all (e.g. the account type is "standard user") then it should be sandboxed from other users (in technical terms, it's a security boundary). The most practical way to do this on a consumer desktop would be to have a separate "Steam user" account that you log in to for the sole purpose of running Steam. While most people wouldn't want to do this (as it's inconvenient), it should at least be an option for those that do want it. To put it another way, there's no good reason to undermine the enhanced security provided by separate user sessions.