Passing NT user/password to webserver for authentication.

[awolff01]

Hello,

I have a VBA module which goes out to a website and queries for data. The website requires username and password; I currently hard code the username and password of the person using it (Which happens to be the same as when they log into the machine). The problem is that every 3 months they are forced to change NT password and I have to modify the code to change the password there too. I would like to get the username and password of the currently logged in user of the machine and pass that to the webserver.

Is this possible?

Thanks.

 

[bmdb]

In short no. But you could modify your code to read an .ini file and store the username and password in there. This way all you change is the .ini file when the password changes and you don't have to mess with the code.

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

once logged in a windows account does not hold the password. It gets from the domain a security token that uniquely identifies the user. When access to a network resource is requested the userid (and all the groups they belong to) is in the token and the domain resources trust that token thus not needing a password as it knows the users has already been authenticated by the domain.

What you should do is have the web site set up with intergrated windows authentication. Then when your vba requests the page the web server will automatically get passed that security token and that can be used to allow or deny access.

It is, to put it bluntly, stupid to have a userid/password hard coded in a app. Even more stupid to have the userid and password stored in a INI file or registry. basically what you are doing in both of those situations is the same as leaving the key to your house under the door mat. You are comprimising the whole security of the network. If the admin have profiles set up forcing password changes every few months they would probably freak to find out what you are doing. If they don't they are either bad at their job or they have security measures in place for the sake of it and not really needed. Personally I'm not one for putting up a fense around a garden to keep the rabbits out if the fence is only going to be going along one side of the garden leaving multiple other paths into the garden open.

There is no way to grab the password besides writing a new login process that replaces the windows login (this is what novell does) and in that case if you keep the password you are just opening up the network to hacking.


Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

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