How to hack into my own Active Directory?
So while my boss is out on training for the week I managed to lock my own administrator account within my AD. We only have 1 DC, 1 exchange server, and 2 storage servers. And other than my boss, I am the only person in the office with domain admin rights. How can I hack into my DC and unlock my account? Worst case secenario is me calling my boss and asking him for his credentials over the phone but since we work in a secure environment then that phone can not take place.
Any suggestions? This is very important as I unlock other user accounts and perform routine system maintenance on a weekly basis
Any suggestions? This is very important as I unlock other user accounts and perform routine system maintenance on a weekly basis
No such thing as an Enterprise Admin account. In a secure network, the DOMAIN admin account will be renamed and disabled and each user will have their own domain admin accounts that MAY be a member of the Enterprise Admin GROUP.
Question - how would YOU have a secure environment if we could tell you how to hack into your own server? Which would be worse - having your boss get annoyed with you for doing this... or bringing down the entire AD because you tried to be sneaky about it?
Call your boss. Have him VPN in or otherwise connect remotely and unlock your account. If this is not an option, then you appear to have found a flaw in your security... and your boss will have to tell you his password.
And in the future, if you think this is likely to happen again, create TWO admin accounts per person. OR, purchase and use self-service account unlocking software like the product Quest offers (probably not cheap). Or create an emergency admin account that has its password secured some place probably with another person so that there's a record of when it's used and by who.
Question - how would YOU have a secure environment if we could tell you how to hack into your own server? Which would be worse - having your boss get annoyed with you for doing this... or bringing down the entire AD because you tried to be sneaky about it?
Call your boss. Have him VPN in or otherwise connect remotely and unlock your account. If this is not an option, then you appear to have found a flaw in your security... and your boss will have to tell you his password.
And in the future, if you think this is likely to happen again, create TWO admin accounts per person. OR, purchase and use self-service account unlocking software like the product Quest offers (probably not cheap). Or create an emergency admin account that has its password secured some place probably with another person so that there's a record of when it's used and by who.
For the future, if it's not out of your security bounds, you can edit the Account lockout policy and set "account lockout duration" to i.e. 60 minutes.
ASKER
Thanks for the help but I managed to figure it out myself. Thanks again for the suggestions!
I object, at least until you name the third party tool.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Do you have access to the Enterprise Admin account?