I'm beginning to enhance my organization's cybersecurity and have just configured Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) on my device for initial testing before a full rollout. This leads me to wonder: what advantages does LAPS provide when it rotates the password for the local Administrator account, which is disabled by default in Windows? I understand that if multiple machines share an Administrator account with the same password, having a unique, automatically changing password is beneficial. However, since the default Administrator account cannot be used without enabling it, how does LAPS contribute to improving security in this scenario?
3 Answers
LAPS can actually help manage other local admin accounts more effectively by keeping track of their passwords. It's especially useful if you need to access local accounts, like when your domain isn't available or if the machine loses its trust with the domain. So it's not just about the master admin account!
If you’re not relying on the default admin account, what local admin accounts are you using? You still need some form of local admin access on your machines. The built-in Administrator is off for consumer devices but may be worth enabling for company machines, especially if you set it uniformly across your devices. By enabling it and letting LAPS manage the password, you add a layer of security.
Absolutely! You can enable a local admin account, perhaps by an IT member, and LAPS helps by rotating its password regularly, adding an extra layer of security.
We're using Entra ID exclusively, so we don't have a local domain at all.