Online Family Compromised by my 11 year Old

Archive
1

His solution was clever - and I need a workaround, or a new family safety solution.

 

He goes to Windows task manager (simple control-alt-delete) and then kills the Norton process. Bye bye time limits.

 

FYI: The solution offered by your online chat tech was flat out wrong and ignorant - he insisted that the child must be logged in as an administrative user  and that I should downgrade the user account. The child isn't an admin, he's a standard user, the lowest possible level.

 

If an eleven year old can figure this out...

 

 

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Chat transcript:

 

David Browde: if you're using windows 7 (or any other recent windows system), you can get to task manager via control-alt-delete. if you can get to task manager you can kill the norton family safety process. if you kill that process you can avoid any time limitation and some other limitations

Shameer: I really understand your concern.

Shameer: David, only an user account with an administrative privilege can access the task manager.

David Browde: Sadly, I believe that's in error. But I'll go check again.

Shameer: If a computer have only one user account, that user account will have the administrative privilege.

David Browde: The relevant computer has multiple accounts

Shameer: So your son have access to the task manager, that is why he is able to disable the Norton Online Family program.

Shameer: You need to create a user account with limited access.

David Browde: I'll check that again - but I believe he has limited access only

Shameer: Also you need to make sure that your son should not have access to the administrative account.

David Browde: he does not

David Browde: will check back after confirming

Shameer: David, using the limited user account he can only open the task manager and see the process that are currently running in his computer.

Shameer: If he have a limited user account, he will not have the privilege to end the process that is running in that computer.

Shameer: So please check whether your son have the administrative privilege in that computer.

 https://link.liveperson.net/click?site-id=77038303&key=84898CB9FEB27504B9B2D

 

 

 

 

2

His solution was clever - and I need a workaround, or a new family safety solution.

 

He goes to Windows task manager (simple control-alt-delete) and then kills the Norton process. Bye bye time limits.

 

FYI: The solution offered by your online chat tech was flat out wrong and ignorant - he insisted that the child must be logged in as an administrative user  and that I should downgrade the user account. The child isn't an admin, he's a standard user, the lowest possible level.

 

If an eleven year old can figure this out...

 

 

---

Chat transcript:

 

David Browde: if you're using windows 7 (or any other recent windows system), you can get to task manager via control-alt-delete. if you can get to task manager you can kill the norton family safety process. if you kill that process you can avoid any time limitation and some other limitations

Shameer: I really understand your concern.

Shameer: David, only an user account with an administrative privilege can access the task manager.

David Browde: Sadly, I believe that's in error. But I'll go check again.

Shameer: If a computer have only one user account, that user account will have the administrative privilege.

David Browde: The relevant computer has multiple accounts

Shameer: So your son have access to the task manager, that is why he is able to disable the Norton Online Family program.

Shameer: You need to create a user account with limited access.

David Browde: I'll check that again - but I believe he has limited access only

Shameer: Also you need to make sure that your son should not have access to the administrative account.

David Browde: he does not

David Browde: will check back after confirming

Shameer: David, using the limited user account he can only open the task manager and see the process that are currently running in his computer.

Shameer: If he have a limited user account, he will not have the privilege to end the process that is running in that computer.

Shameer: So please check whether your son have the administrative privilege in that computer.

 https://link.liveperson.net/click?site-id=77038303&key=84898CB9FEB27504B9B2D

 

 

 

 

3

Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, fully patched.

Lenovo X61 Laptop, 4g RAM

Safety Minder Engine 2.1.0.52

 

And, sorry, your script is completely wrong. I've personally accessed the task manager while logged in on his standard user account. He's shown me how he did it. It works.

 

 

 

 

4

Hi David,

 

First off, welcome to the Norton Forums!

 

To clarify, your son has a standard user account in Windows 7 Ultimate Edition and is able to "end process" on the Norton Safety Minder (ccSvcHst.exe) which then bypasses the time limit you have set?

 

Do you have a Norton Security program installed on this computer with Norton Safety Minder? Norton Security products is what provides the "tamper protection" for all Norton programs.

 

If you do not have a Norton Secuirty program then I highly recommend you download a trial version and see how it blends with the Norton Safety Minder. This will provide an access denied message when attempting to disable Norton Safety Minder in the Standard/Limited User Account.  Without Norton Tamper Protection we will need to discuss an alternative in a private message.

 

Please let me know the details and I would be glad to assist in resolving this.

 

Sincerely,

 

Nathan J

Norton Case Manager

 

 

5

No, I don't have an add on to Norton Family Safety - and, for the record, I today observed him as he completely disabled Family Safety even though he was in a time period in which he was officially blocked from logging on.

 

That's right - less than 60 seconds, disabling the process you identified. (In fact, he didn't know which one it was, he simply disabled process after process until he got to the right one.)

 

The only good news is that as the program was terminating, this time, Family Safety sent me an e-mail notification that it had been disabled.

 

In my view you should not make this program available as a standalone - it gives a parent a completely false sense of security. As I said, if an 11 year old can disable it (in under 60 seconds!), the program is seriously flawed. And the information your support agents give people as to the availability of Windows features is completely inaccurate.

6

As much as I agree with the original poster, I would caution anyone who has given the other user accounts admin access, whether it be kids or simply friends using the computer. Admin access allows for much more than simply disabling things in task manager and in reality its not that difficult.

For those not familiar with control panel in any verision of windows, you simply click on the start menu and click control panel. Navigate to users or user accounts and change that user to limited or standard instead of admin. It will reduce the risk of bad or unwelcomed things from happening.

Restricting that user can and does provide many benefits that would allow online family to work properly. Ive dealt with this situation at home and as a computer technician I always have the upperhand :).

 

I read this post and thought of a thread I read about the negative effects of disabling task manager for a specific user. Below is the link to view what I was originally going to add to this thread. Hope it gives some insight.

 

Disabling task manager

 

Cheers...