Discussion on:

Working with (and around) Windows Vista User Account Control

What are your impressions of UAC? Does it look like a genuine security enhancement or do you think it's too easily circumvented?

I find it a net positive. It's kind of annoying to have to click to authorize certain programs, but it does increase the security of the system. I'll trade an extra click or two for a more secure system.

Lots of good info nicely summarized. Thank-you.

I found the info on the Secure Desktop misleading, and likely to influence people to make a bad decision. The Secure Desktop in which UAC prompts are displayed by default serves a very important purpose and should not be disabled.

It ensures that UAC prompts cannot easily be spoofed by trojan horse programs or manipulated by keystroke-sending programs. It hardens the UAC prompt against a class of security exploits known as the "Shatter" attack, in which untrusted code can manipulate programs running with higher privileges.

(It does so by presenting UAC prompts in a seperate 'Windows Station'. Programs cannot send messages to programs running in a different Windows Station, so cannot query or maniplutate them.)

Great article, very helpful. Thank you!

I beleive remote users in Vista have a low privilege and would like to know if there is any remote applications can get elevated privilege.