Hack 75 Secure Backups

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Hack 75 Secure Backups

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Protect critical business information by restricting who can back up and restore it .

In a small organization, a single administrator might be responsible for backing up and restoring data stored on servers. In a large enterprise, however, it's more likely that administrative responsibilities will be delegated among various groups. Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 include special built-in groups for such purposes, but we'll also see how creating custom groups can give you even greater control over who can back up and restore your data.

Using Backup Operators

There are actually two different Backup Operators groups in Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003: a local group and a domain local group . What's the difference between local and domain local groups? Local groups are defined in the SAM database on a member server or workstation, while domain local groups are stored in Active Directory on domain controllers. As a result, member servers and workstations have a built-in local group named Backup Operators, and membership of this group is modified by using Local Users and Groups in the Computer Management console.

By contrast, domain controllers have a built-in domain local group also named Backup Operators, and membership in the group is modified using the Active Directory Users and Groups (ADUC) console (the group is located within the Built-in container for each domain).

In the GUI, the domain local Backup Operators group is actually labeled as "Built-in local" instead of "Built-in domain local." This is an error in the GUI.


So, what exactly can members of the Backup Operators group do? First, they can back up any file or folder on the server on which the group resides. This means that if you belong to the Backup Operators group on a member server, you can back up and restore files on that member server (and only that member server). But if you belong to the Backup Operators group on a domain controller, you can back up and restore files on any server in the domain. Backup Operators can also perform certain other tasks , such as interactively logging on to the console of the server and shutting the server down. And members of the built-in Server Operators group can do everything Backup Operators can, in addition to being able to create and manage shared folders and printers.

So, who belongs to the Backup Operators group? By default, nobody. The idea is that these users have a powerful abilityto make copies of sensitive business data and restore these copies to another machineso you should think carefully before you make anyone a member of this group.

How do Backup Operators get these abilities ? By the user rights assigned to them. User rights indicate authorization or privilege to perform some task and are assigned by using Group Policy (in an Active Directory environment) or Local Security Policy (on standalone servers in a workgroup). In a Group Policy Object (GPO), user rights are found under Computer Configuration Windows Settings Security Settings Local Policies User Rights Assignment (see Figure 8-5).

Figure 8-5. User rights displayed in Group Policy
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By default both the Backup Operators and Administrators built-in groups are assigned the following user rights:

  • Back up files and directories

  • Restore files and directories

Again, on a domain controller, the Server Operators group also has these rights by default. What's interesting about these two privileges is that they override any NTFS permissions that files and directories might have. Thus, even if the Backup Operators group is explicitly denied Read permission to a folder, members of this group can still back up the folder and its contents. In other words, user rights take precedence over permissions.

Mind you, there is a hack that enables a user to back up files and folders on a machine without assigning them the preceding rights. The trick is to assign them, at a minimum, the following special NTFS permissions on the file or folder:

  • Traverse folder/execute file

  • List folder/read data

  • Read attributes

  • Read extended attributes

  • Read permissions

You might use this method to grant a user the ability to back up copies of sensitive documents to a local folder on his workstation. By assigning these permissions, users can back up the contents of the folder but can't read the files stored in it. The rational for using this approach, instead of assigning the necessary rights to the user, is that for security reasons you might want to ensure that the user has as few rights as possible, in case the user's account is compromised by an intruder. In other words, though this approach is more complicated, it can help guard against elevation of privilege attacks.

Restricting Access to Backups

A company's disaster recovery plan often overlooks the fact that those who perform backups shouldn't necessarily be the ones who restore from backups when things go wrong. That's because performing a backup is a routine administrative task that should be done regularly and delegated to some responsible user, but restoring a backup can actually provide the user with access to the backed -up data itself. For example, by restoring a backup job to a rogue server on the network and then running cracking tools locally on the server, the user could gain access to sensitive data and compromise the company's business.

The solution is to ignore the built-in Backup Operators group and create two new security groups instead. For instance, you might name them something mundane, like Backup Group and Restore Group, or something more creative if you prefer. Then, assign the right to "Back up files and directories" to Backup Group and "Restore files and directories" to Restore Group. Don't assign any other rights to these two groups.

Now, assign selected users to each group as desired. Typically, the membership of Backup Group is be more inclusive than Restore Group and should include both junior administrators (who have actual responsibility for day-to-day backups) and senior administrators (who can be there in a pinch if things go wrong). Of course, the junior administrators should not be members of the default Domain Admins group; if they are, they will automatically have the "Restore files and directories" privilege as well.

The Restore Group, however, should have only senior administratorsthe most trusted members of your IT departmentas members. Whether or not they are all domain administrators is another question; best practice suggests that membership in Domain Admins should be as highly restricted as possible, and potential members of this group should be carefully screened during your company's hiring process. If you think one bad apple spoils the bunch, wait till you see what one corrupt administrator can do to your business!

If you assign the "Back up files and directories" right to a group and then find that a user who belongs to this group has difficulty backing up one or more volumes, check the disk quota restrictions on those volumes to ensure they aren't restricting the user from accessing those volumes .


Another approach you can use to secure your backups is to take advantage of a setting available on the Backup Job Information dialog box (see Figure 8-6). This dialog box appears after you start the Backup utility, select the volumes or folders you want to back up, and click the Start Backup button. By selecting the checkbox labeled "Allow only the owner and the Administrator access to the backup data," you configure permissions on the backup job so that only the individual who created the backup and the default administrator account can restore the backup.

Figure 8-6. Allowing only the backup owner and administrator to restore the backup
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While this approach is easier than the approach I described earlier, it doesn't provide the same level of security as separating those who can restore data from those who back it up. Also, you can enable this setting only if you are backing up to a new tape or overwriting an old one; if you're appending your backup set to an existing tape, the setting is not available. In other words, the restriction offered by this setting is applied on a tape-by-tape basis, not a job-by-job basis. So, the lesser degree of security offered by this approach, coupled with its lack of flexibility, leads me to suggest you avoid using this setting and instead use the two-group approach I described previously.

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Windows Server Hacks
Windows Server Hacks
ISBN: 0596006470
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 163
Authors: Mitch Tulloch

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