Windows 7 admin shares

I was reading about Windows 7 admin shares and Microsofts Baseline security analizer suggests turning them off. Should I turn them off? Will there be any issues? I have a single PC on a 3 PC home network.

Thanks

dev

If you go through some of the tweaks needed to permanently disable them, you will have issues if/when you try to access your PC from your network. Unless your computer is on a very insecure and threat-filled network segment, you're probably better of leaving those shares alone.

TempliNocturnus said:

If you go through some of the tweaks needed to permanently disable them, you will have issues if/when you try to access your PC from your network. Unless your computer is on a very insecure and threat-filled network segment, you're probably better of leaving those shares alone.

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Ok.

1) Why would there ne hidden shares anyway that create a huge security hole.

2) Why would Microsofts Baseline Security Analizer tell me to turn them off?

Honestly in the past few months I have only needed to acces one PC for one file. I am ready to lock this down and remove it from the homegroup completely. Will I need them then?

Thanks,

dev

The hidden shares do not in and of themselves create a "huge security hole;" depending on the sharing and security model you have installed, only either the Guest account can access those shares (if it's enabled and if it has file system permissions for the share location, which it typically does not), or authenticated local accounts would have access.

If you're really concerned about security and do not wish to share any resources with other machines on your network, you should disable your Guest account and ensure that your Network access: Sharing and security model is set to 'Guest only' in your Local Security policy Security options.

I'm not entirely sure why BSA is telling you that, as I do not recall it showing that as a threat when I ran it against some of my hosts. If you post a screenshot or an report of what it's telling you, I might be able to give you a better interpretation of what it's saying. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me much for an MS product to reveal a needed feature in another one of their products as a vulnerability or bad practice; it wouldn't be the first time MS done that.

Again, as TempliNocturnus stated, if this is a secured home connection (meaning, you know what computers are plugged in and your wireless is secure), it doesn't matter if you leave them on or not. Worrying over things like this doesn't make sense when there are much larger security holes out there.