Yo mates,

Here I have a problem. One of my friends, got hold of my computer while I went to the Johns.

Somehow, he shutdown my PC, rebooted it and changed my root password.

He gave me a few clues which among other included something along the lines of Run Level 1 and that user being able to change the password.

I have a few questions regarding this issue.

1) I wasn't running root. How did he manage to change my password. Is there something wrong with my current unix configuration.

2) He did the whole thing in about 10 mins I was away. How did do it so fast? Usually, when I change my unix password, it asks for my current password first. Assuming he didnt' guess that password, is there any other way for him to find it out ? Or can he bypass the whole current password thingy ?

If this info helps, I automatically log on to my user account while running KDE when I boot up. I'm running Mandrake 8.2

Hope someone can help me out. Worried about security here.

Sounds like he booted to single user mode (/me makes a note of another reason not to use Mandrake).

IIRC at the lilo prompt type

linux single

That should boot you up in to what is effectivly "safe mode", you may be able to change the root password then.