Lost passwords

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bikini Browser
  • Start date Start date
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Bikini Browser

Hello Everyone.. I hope everyone is having a really nice day...

I have a big problem.. I am taking over a new network because the last
network administrator was killed in a car crash. It is a small company and
every one trusted the old administrator. The problem is that he took all
the passwords to his grave with him.

I was told that there is an open source tool that I can boot to a CD Rom and
it will tell the passwords on the box I am booting too. Does anyone know
where I can get a tool like that.

OR does anyone have any other ideas on how to solve this problem?
Otherwise, I will have to rebuild the entire network and all hte Computers
too.

Please help me in this time of crisis.

Bikini Browser
San Juan Puerto Rico
 
Bikini Browser said:
Hello Everyone.. I hope everyone is having a really nice day...

I have a big problem.. I am taking over a new network because the last
network administrator was killed in a car crash. It is a small company and
every one trusted the old administrator. The problem is that he took all
the passwords to his grave with him.

I was told that there is an open source tool that I can boot to a CD Rom and
it will tell the passwords on the box I am booting too. Does anyone know
where I can get a tool like that.

OR does anyone have any other ideas on how to solve this problem?
Otherwise, I will have to rebuild the entire network and all hte Computers
too.

Please help me in this time of crisis.

Bikini Browser
San Juan Puerto Rico
Click to expand...

NTpassword:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd
How to Log On to Windows XP If You Forget Your Password or Your
Password Expires
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q321305
HTH.
nass
 
You have already been given some good information.
But to add a little.

Are any encrypted files involved?
If so and you reset the password, access to them may be permanently
lost.
 
Bikini said:
Hello Everyone.. I hope everyone is having a really nice day...

I have a big problem.. I am taking over a new network because the
last network administrator was killed in a car crash. It is a small
company and every one trusted the old administrator. The problem is
that he took all the passwords to his grave with him.

I was told that there is an open source tool that I can boot to a CD
Rom and it will tell the passwords on the box I am booting too. Does
anyone know where I can get a tool like that.

OR does anyone have any other ideas on how to solve this problem?
Otherwise, I will have to rebuild the entire network and all hte
Computers too.

Please help me in this time of crisis.

Bikini Browser
San Juan Puerto Rico
Click to expand...

You can probably sue his estate.
 
For what?
There is nothing the estate has that belongs to the company and there
is no company policy broken, at least going by what the OP stated.
 
Bikini Browser said:
Hello Everyone.. I hope everyone is having a really nice day...

I have a big problem.. I am taking over a new network because the last
network administrator was killed in a car crash. It is a small company
and every one trusted the old administrator. The problem is that he took
all the passwords to his grave with him.

I was told that there is an open source tool that I can boot to a CD Rom
and it will tell the passwords on the box I am booting too. Does anyone
know where I can get a tool like that.

OR does anyone have any other ideas on how to solve this problem?
Otherwise, I will have to rebuild the entire network and all hte Computers
too.

Please help me in this time of crisis.

Bikini Browser
San Juan Puerto Rico
Click to expand...

Condolences on your loss.

As noted, you can reset the passwords externally, but also if encryption
was used, doing this will instantly, permanently and irrevocably deny anyone
access to the encrypted files. And it's usually high-value data that is
encrypted.

So if you need in, but also think that encryption *might* have been used,
take the drive out of that box, clone it to another new or bare disk, and
set the original aside safely in an antistatic bag.

Work with the clone, and break the passwords on the clone. Then, if you
have full access to the files, you're done and you have a spare drive.
All is well.

If you don't have full access.... you still have the chance to try to
re-image and try to guess passwords. The key point there is that there are
still things you can do, and you haven't actually permanently lost any data.
Also importantly, it won't look like *you* screwed up, and did catch another
potential disaster before it happened.

As to costs for this, where I am a 250 gig drive is about $70, and you can
use a free demo version of Acronis TrueImage to do the cloning.
www.acronis.com . The task of moving the drives and making the images
will take you perhaps a couple of hours, all up, the first time. Much of
that will be waiting, the image itself often takes around 30 minutes.

HTH
-pk
 
Jupiter said:
For what?
There is nothing the estate has that belongs to the company and there
is no company policy broken, at least going by what the OP stated.
Click to expand...

If an employee burnt down the company and died in the fire, the company
could march against his assets.

Liability for malicious acts does not terminate with death.

And, as to whether the employee's actions were malicious, well, it's the
company's word against nobody. Somebody screws my company, I'm gonna make
life miserable for him (if he's still alive), his family, and everybody he
ever knew. Blood from their rag-wrapped feet dropping on the snow as the
wander the wastes, hungry and displaced is my goal.
 
Is this an Active Domain network where the password of the domain
administrator is not known or just workgroup computers?? If it is I know a
fairly easy way to gain access to the domain again even if you do not want
to change the domain administrator password. For local computer
administrator passwords the tools mentioned will work by changing
administrator passwords. The first link below may be worth a try if you
actually need to know the passwords and the password was stored with a lm
hash also which may be very likely.

Steve

http://www.loginrecovery.com/
http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm
 
"If an employee burnt down the company..."
Not relevant in this case.

"Liability for malicious acts..."
No evidence for that but there is evidence to the contrary.

"...company's word against nobody."
Incorrect.
The estate and the OP since the OPs comments are now on semi permanent
record.

"Somebody screws my company..."
It seems this is also not relevant.
It seems more likely the company is paying for bad policies at worst.

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org


If an employee burnt
down the company and died in the fire, the company
 
As noted, you can reset the passwords externally, but also if encryption
was used, doing this will instantly, permanently and irrevocably deny anyone
access to the encrypted files. And it's usually high-value data that is
encrypted.
Click to expand...

Note that this only applies if the data was encrypted using a local and not
a domain account. Password resets on domain accounts do not prevent access
to the DPAPI protected private key material.
 
Jupiter Jones said:
"If an employee burnt down the company..."
Not relevant in this case.

"Liability for malicious acts..."
No evidence for that but there is evidence to the contrary.

"...company's word against nobody."
Incorrect.
The estate and the OP since the OPs comments are now on semi permanent
record.

"Somebody screws my company..."
It seems this is also not relevant.
It seems more likely the company is paying for bad policies at worst.
Click to expand...

I agree. If the recently deceased admin was simply doing his best and NOT
deliberately disobeying policy or established practice regarding the
management of passwords, I seriously doubt that his estate could be sued.
Rather, the owners of the company are the ones that have brought this on
themselves by not establishing appropriate policy and procedures.

/Al
 
And before you forget the lesson entirely, try to figure out how to avoid
this happening when you leave suddenly! ;-) Not that you'll die, or anything
like that - you might just win a lottery.

/Al
 
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