Home Forums SQL Server 2014 Administration - SQL Server 2014 What is the default sa password? RE: What is the default sa password?

  • January 14, 2014 at 7:22 am

    #1679889

    keymoo (1/14/2014)

    paul.knibbs (1/14/2014)

    Jeff Moden (1/13/2014)

    Unless someone changed it, the SA password is the one used when SQL Server was installed.

    But you're not asked to specify an SA password during setup if you select Windows authentication, are you? :unsure:

    Exactly, I know the risk is small, but if the instance was placed in Mixed Mode and the sa account enabled (by mistake, or a script, or something), how secure is the password? Is it easy to reverse? Is it as secure as a SHA-256 one way hash function? Am I worrying unnecessarily about vanishingly small probabilities of edge cases?

    It's been a while since I've had to do an install so I could certainly be wrong but I'm pretty sure it always asks you for an SA password. To be sure, though, I'd always worry about the SA password and disable the SA account even after giving it a good, strong password and storing it in a safe somewhere.

    --Jeff Moden

    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

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