Experts Claim Removing User Admin Rights Will Prevent 86% of Windows Threats

Each year, the security firm Avecto releases a Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report. For 2015, the report issues some scathing analysis uncovering the idea that if user administrator rights within Windows were removed, 86% of Windows threats would be prevented. While this idea has raised many eyebrows and even placed one of those gigantic question mark clouds over the heads of Microsoft techs, the theory is certainly plausible.

Diving into Microsoft's nearly countless security bulletins from 2015, one could conclude to finding many consistent events. Of those, Avecto has plucked out the instances where about 82% of the security bugs discovered in MS Office alone would become ineffective if Windows user admin rights were taken away. Moreover, many other security bugs within other core Microsoft applications would have thwarted threats by removing admin rights.

Consider this; your Windows PC lacks the ability to log in under the primary administrator account. You are left to logging into your machine using a guest account with limited privileges and access. Because of the limited access, you cannot edit, delete or move files or applications. Think of such restricted access being given to a malicious application or a remote hacker. They too would not be able to initiate attacks through manipulation of files and applications installed on the limited-access Windows computer. We know, this is making you think pretty hard!

Looking into the hard data found and reported by Avecto, research has concluded that about 85% of all Remote Code Execution (RCE) bugs can be alleviated by removing administrator rights in Windows. As it turns out, RCEs are one of the most popular methods for exploiting applications.

While it seems that removal of user admin rights is working backwards in the full scheme of creating the safest computer environment, think of how many Windows users actually need admin rights to their system. If we were to guess how many consumer-used PCs running Windows required user admin rights, we may end up presenting this case directly to Microsoft ourselves.

By nixing the RCE bugs with the removal of user admin rights, we give ourselves a big break in addressing vulnerabilities and malware threats. The breakdown of Microsoft vulnerability categories in 2015 places RCE vulnerabilities at the top of the list for being exploited, as demonstrated in the chart below.

Avecto's Breakdown of Microsoft Vulnerability Categories in 2015 chart

While we don't quite expect Microsoft, or any other software giant, to make a move in removing all user admin access to their software, it stirs the proverbial threat pot so much that we now have cream to deal with when we initially started out with milk. In other words, the theory conjured up by Avecto has us and many other "experts" thinking. Though this isn't the first time this idea has been discussed, and it won't be the last time. For now, we will leave it at that – an idea that could eventually evolve to a proof of concept and thwart future threats.