Account Lockout Policies

[Saburo Usami <UsamiS () SACREDHEART EDU>]

Sacred Heart University is configuring its Windows 2003 systems to
conform with Best Practices as recommended by an external auditor.  In
addition to complexity requirements, their Best Practices
recommendations include password policies set as follows:
 
- Account Lockout Threshold: 3 Attempts
- Account Lockout Duration: Administrator Unlocks
 
We have two separate problems with this recommendation.
 
1. From an administrative standpoint, we feel that these settings may
actually encourage users (e.g., disgruntled students just prior to
mid-terms/finals) to cause trouble for others on the network by
deliberately shutting their fellow students or instructors out of the
network -- or running scripts to do the same -- and "security by
obscurity" seems like a losing bet in the academic network space.
 
2. From a technical standpoint, Windows 2003 does not allow a
"perpetual" lockout stance.  99,999 is the maximum number of minutes an
account can be locked out
<http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technolo
gies/security/bpactlck.mspx> .  This translates to about 69.44 days,
which is less than a semester and less than a summer break.  Hence, we
can't truly comply with the recommended lockout duration.
 
We would like to conform to the recommendations our auditors have made,
but are having difficulty with this one.  Any suggestions or insights on
your experiences with Account Lockouts and/or utilities that manage this
would be greatly appreciated.
 
Saburo Usami
Director of Networking - Telecomm - IT Security
Sacred Heart University