Requesting administrator rights on a UQ computer

The UQ Access and Privileges Procedure mandates that administrative access is restricted on UQ computers.

Having administrative privileges allows someone to make significant changes to their computer, including the ability to bypass security settings. This increases the likelihood of a malicious attacker gaining administrative access to a computer, resulting in a significant cyber security incident.

You may require administrator rights to the computer if you:

• are travelling with your laptop regularly away from home or overseas
• use software that requires administrator access to function, e.g. for research
• frequently change advanced configuration settings on your computer.

Conditions of use

If your request is approved, you’ll need to meet the following conditions of use:

1. Your account with administrator rights will only be used when performing actions that require local administrator rights. All other activities will be performed under your normal UQ account. You will not install software if the software can be installed through the Software Centre, Self Service or by ITS within the terms of applicable Service Level Agreements.
2. You will only install correctly licensed software on your computer. Personal licences are not normally valid for UQ devices. Licensing information for any copyrighted software must be sent to help@its.uq.edu.au, where it will be available to auditors on request.
3. You will not modify or remove any management or anti-virus software installed by ITS on your computer.
4. By taking on administrative rights to a UQ ITS managed computer, you become part of the team that has responsibility for its support.
5. Wherever possible, you must ensure that ITS installs software and upgrades, even though you have administrative rights.
6. You’re responsible for backing up critical files and data stored on your local hard drives. If your workstation has problems, ITS will return the computer to you in its original state without attempting to diagnose problems or restore local data.
7. Administrator rights may be removed if you make unauthorised changes to your computer. ITS reserves the right to reimage the computer back to its original state.

How to request administrator rights

You can only request administrator rights if you are:

• a staff member or HDR student, and
• requesting administrator rights for your assigned UQ computer.

If you meet these conditions, you can submit an IT request to be assessed. In your request, include your:

• computer name
• organisational unit
• supervisor’s name
• reason for requesting additional rights.

ITS will assess your request based on your needs, ITS’ capability to deliver the functionality you require and any potential risks.