Can I disable the SA account in SQL Server?

Posted on by Dominique Stacey

Can I disable the SA account in SQL Server?

To change this setting in SQL Server Management Studio, right-click the server, click Properties and go to Security page as shown below. Disabling the SA account is a good option to prevent its use.

What is the SA account in SQL?

system administrator
The sa login, short for system administrator, is one of the riskiest server-level principals in SQL Server. It’s automatically added as a member of the sysadmin fixed server role and, as such, has all permissions on that instance and can perform any activity.

How can delete sa user in SQL Server?

To do so, we can use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) as follows:

  1. Open SSMS.
  2. Connect to a SQL Server instance.
  3. In Object Explorer, go to « Security » node then logins.
  4. Right-click on the SQL Server Login you want to drop then click on “Delete”
  5. SSMS will show following warning message.
  6. Click on “OK”

How do I know if my SA account is disabled?

Log in with the Windows Authentication > go to the Security section. Check the login accounts, sa user will have a red arrow pointing down, indicating that it is disabled.

How do I delete SA account?

You can’t remove the sa account but you can rename and/or disable it. Arguably this is good practice as otherwise you have a known username that an attacker could launch a brute force password attack against. Just make sure if you disable the sa account that you have another account with administrator privileges.

Can we rename SA account?

Navigate to SQL Server Management Studio >> Object Explorer >> <‘SQL Server name’> >> Security >> Logins >> click ‘sa’ account name. Hit while the name is highlighted in order to edit the name. Rename the ‘sa’ account.

How do I get my SA password?

To use SSMS navigate to the Security node and then expand Logins and right click the sa login to change the Password properties like you can see in Figure 2. Alternatively you can select New Query from the SSMS menu to open Query Editor and then run the following T-SQL query to reset the password for the sa login.

How do I activate my sa account?

Enable sa login

  1. In Object Explorer, expand Security, expand Logins, right-click sa, and then click Properties.
  2. On the General page, you might have to create and confirm a password for the sa login.
  3. On the Status page, in the Login section, click Enabled, and then click OK.

What is the default sa password for SQL Server?

blank
When you install Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) version 1.0 or Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE2000), the installation uses SQL Authentication by default. In addition, the default user name in these cases is sa, and the default password is blank.

How can I change my sa account?

Option 1: Using the existing SA password

  1. Open the SQL Server Management Studio.
  2. Log in as the SA user using SQL Server authentication and the current password.
  3. In the Object Explorer, expand Security and then Logins.
  4. Double click the SA login.
  5. Enter the desired password and confirm it.
  6. Click OK.

How do I find my SQL SA password?

Open the command prompt.

  1. Run the command EXEC sp_addsrvrolemember ‘DOMAIN\Username (Domain username) ‘, ‘sysadmin’;
  2. Now go to SQL Server Instance clicks on Properties.
  3. Go to Startup Parameters tab and remove startup parameter –m from Existing parameters after that click on Apply then OK.
  4. Now stop the SQL instance again.

What is SA default password?

When you install Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) version 1.0 or Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE2000), the installation uses SQL Authentication by default. In addition, the default user name in these cases is sa, and the default password is blank.