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Microsoft Windows 2000 EFS Vulnerability
Windows 2000 ships with a capability to DES encrypt user-specified files. A main purpose for this is to protect sensitive information even from local physical access. (For example, if a laptop is stolen.) Encryption and decryption are transparent to the user, and all key handling is done by the OS. However, in its implementation, Microsoft included the concept of the Recovery Agent, a workaround with the express purpose of enabling retrieval of encrypted data if its owner should be unavailable. By default, the RA for any file on the system is the Administrator account. If an attacker can obtain Administrator (or other designated RA) access, all files may be readable regardless of the encryption. |
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