[nycbug-talk] passwordless sudo: yay or nay?

[N.J. Thomas]

I've noticed a trend in the past few years where a lot of Unix users (a
group in which I clump BSD, Linux, and Mac OS X) are using passwordless
sudo.

I've always thought this to be a security risk, if a local account with
sudo access is compromised then the attackers have root access, so all
my accounts that have blanket sudo access (i.e. "ALL=(ALL) ALL") need to
enter a password.

What is the current thinking/best practice on how to setup sudo on PCs
and personal Unix-based desktops? Is passwordless sudo okay in this
context?

Thomas