A Uniform Desktop Is a Secure Desktop

NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technololgy) provides a baseline reference image for the FDCC at its Web site, fdcc.nist.gov.

The FDCC requires passwords to change every 60 days and have a minimum length of 12 characters, among other characteristics.

The FDCC extensively uses Windows Group Policy to enforce user rights.

While the FDCC requires that wireless network functions be off by default, it does not prevent authorized wireless networking, which I was able to configure on my reference system.

The FDCC reference image of Windows XP comes with the guest account disabled and the administrative account renamed. Further instructions from NIST give advice about using the administrative account, although eWEEK Labs recommends not providing users with administrative access at all.