How safe is the runastool.exe, any known issues?

Question

I don't know how known is this tool, but an admin in our organisation is using RunAsTool v1.5 : https://www.sordum.org/8727/runastool-v1-5/

I did not hear about it before, the website seems to propose a multitude of free softwares that are supposed to give more control over windows.

Saw around 200 comments of users, so I guess some people are using it and seem quite satisfied.

However do people with more experience then me see some risk in here ? were there any known security issues with this tool ?

Answer 1

To run Properly RunAsTool need to install on a windows system which has an Administrator account with password.The login information for the application like username and password are read from an encrypted file – You don’t have to worry about your Admin Password.

From the webpage of the tool.

This means that it stores the password. If the tool can retrieve the password, so can an attacker. The fact that the authors tell you not to worry signifies that they are... not security minded. I would thus suspect the tool to harbour several pitfalls and security problems.

In addition, if you allow users to run some software with raised privileges, assume that the user can run any software with raised privileges.

If you ever have the need for this piece of software, it is better to use the built in Windows feature UAC. UAC provides real security, and doesn't create additional problems.