I am trying to use ClickOnce publishing to deploy a winforms application to a set of users within a small organisation. I am a sole trader supplier to this organisation.
ClickOnce installs my software for each user in %LocalAppData%\{ObfuscatedPath}.
However, the hardware and networking supplier (another company) has blocked writing to this folder for security reasons, 'to ensure that the machine is safe and free from possible malware', and does not recommend unblocking it at this stage.
So it seems like Microsoft is happy and not concerned about security issues with this strategy, but otherSupplier is.
I'm not trying to build a case against otherSupplier; I simply want to understand whether or not clickonce deployment is secure, and therefore we could at least unblock some of the appropriate folders under %LocalData%.
I should add that, in addition to logging on to their account, there is a login screen on my software, and also that HIPAA is a consideration since we're talking about a US health care provider.
Thanks!
One of the reasons why Microsoft utilized user specific storage was to avoid requiring admin privileges to install/run ClickOnce Applications and this does simplify application deployment.
While ClickOnce Applications donot require Admin Privileges to install, if the application has not been signed by a trusted publisher, Enterprise admins can block their installation via a bluescreen error message.
In terms of security, If the client expects to limit installation of applications entirely without sufficient privileges, this strategy might work. That said, preventing use of LocalAppData doesn't exactly limit an application from causing damage if it was designed to do so.