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I n f o B u l l e t i n
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December 2002 |
coopsys.net |
Co-Operative Systems |
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1. TOTP3: The Top 20 Security Issues
Security flaws and weaknesses are appearing in almost unmanageable quantities. How do you keep your network stable door firmly bolted with the horse on the inside of it?
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In a manner not dissimilar to casual theft, most attacks on computer networks occur on the basis of simple opportunism. Attackers just go for what's easiest and cherry-pick the security holes that inattentive systems managers forget to patch or don't know about.
Life would be easier if we had a 'pop chart' of those top danger spots, highlighting where our networks are most susceptible.
And of course, someone has already thought of it !
Now a couple of years old, the earlier top ten list has expanded into the SANS/FBI Top Twenty - effectively two lists covering Windows and Unix systems respectively.
Who are the chart fans ?
The list is written for system administrators, both experienced and beginners alike.
What does it show ?
Headers for each vulnerability show :
- A brief Description
- ... with links to more details
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- Which Operating Systems are affected
- ... does it apply to your machine(s)?
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- How to Determine if you are Vulnerable
- ... does it apply to your machine's setup?
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- How to Protect Against It
- ... and close the security hole.
Top Vulnerabilities to Windows Systems
Like any popularity chart the list is dynamic, but here is a count down of the ten Windows chart toppers to date ....
In at number 10 ...
10. Windows Scripting Host
The default-installed program that allowed "Love Bug" and dozens of copycat viruses to worm their way into our hearts and email systems, propagating their VisualBasic script payloads as they went.
9. Remote Registry Access
Discovering and/or editing critical parts of the machine registry (database) by attackers who have been able to elevate themselves to machine administrator status.
8. Internet Explorer
A raft of vulnerabilities plaguing Microsoft's browser (sometimes installed even if you don't use it) and easy for attackers to exploit simply by luring potential victims to a malicious web site.
7. General Windows Authentication
Accounts with blank passwords or easily-guessed ones. Doesn't need a technical ability to fix and those accounts belonging to ex-users should be disabled.
6. LAN Manager Authentication
The legacy LanManager support supplied in all MS Windows employs weak encryption of passwords which is then easily cracked.
... half way down the chart (feeling exposed yet?) ...
5. Anonymous Logon
Attackers may be able to discover user names and the names of shared discs on the network by logging in with a Null Session and further their information gathering quest.
4. NETBIOS
The Windows equivalent of unprotected sex, 'sharing out' your local Windows disc to colleagues may be useful (or even essential in a peer-to-peer network) but most disc shares don't require a password and may have been inadvertently left open, redundant and forgotten. Again, all you need to apply is common sense.
Vying for the top 3 places ...
3. Microsoft SQL Server
As if Windows operating system flaws weren't enough to contend with, Microsoft's SQL Server backend database engine has its own as well! The sensitive data at risk could be that key information you hold in your organisational database - and yet the fixes are relatively trivial.
2. Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC)
An old, but popular exploit of the Remote Data Services (RDS) flaw that allows a remote user to run programs on your PC with administrator status. An easy upgrade can block it.
... but occupying the hot spot ...
1. Internet Information Services (IIS)
Where better for an attacker to get stuck in than right at the heart of your web server! After all, it's intended for public use, isn't it? Unless you know that measures have been taken to clamp down on the supplied IIS default configuration, it's best to assume that your doors are wide open to its flaws in the areas of malformed HTTP requests and ISAPI buffer overflows, as exploited by the wild-fire Code Red worms.
And finally ...
This crucial and excellent list is finished off with another short list showing where you might be letting outsiders in: the ports at your firewall that are used by commonly probed and commonly attacked services and that you shouldn't block.
And a cast list of hundreds, if not thousands.
Rating
Worth putting right at the top of your browser bookmarks.
How to fix those security holes
Often, the art of 'patching' is simply a matter of downloading a piece of software and applying it to your Windows PC or server. So-called "cumulative patches" save a lot of searching by curing several system weaknesses at once, comprising a bundle of previously released patches.
However, fixes may also involve disabling a service on the machine under scrutiny, or upgrading to a more recent version and doing this for even a moderate number of machines can tax the amount of time you have available in your day. For clients with rolling FM programmes we can advise on and/or carry out these important fixes. Want to know more? Talk to us or write to us here.
Contacts
The SANS/FBI Twenty Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities :
http://www.sans.org/top20/#index
-IB-
Acknowledgements: Manji Kerai, SANS/FBI
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2. Web traffic analysers: head to head review
"Who's been crawling in my Web?"
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Practically the very next thing you find that needs doing after you've built that perfect web site is that it has to be modified, because someone mentioned to one of your colleagues that they couldn't find a particular page or a link they used to see isn't there anymore.
But these snippets of word-of-mouth feedback are a hazy method of assessing what visitors really want out of your web site. More sophisticated methods of gathering visitor statistics already exist to make the webmaster's task more efficient, and what's more, some of these tools for analysing web traffic are free!
So where does the information come from ?
What's in a log file ?
Log files record each web page load, the web page address, a time stamp, a visitor identifier and normally the address of the previous page - called the 'referrer'.
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The provider or web hoster who stores your web site automatically keeps records about which of your web pages are accessed by visitors. These records are held in "web logs" - files that are also kept in your area of the web server, but are normally accessible only to the webmaster or someone with the password used for editing your site.
It may be necessary to ask your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to 'turn on' the logs - they may be disabled by default to save space - and should be able to give you information on how to access that log data.
Benefits
- Optimise your site for your visitors.
- Web approach is no longer a matter of second-guessing your audience
Here, we review two very different web traffic analysers head-to-head:
BraveNet
BraveNet's traffic counter is entirely handled on the Web. All the logs, statistics and presentations are stored and accessed at bravenet.com's web site.
How it works
The process is kick-started by your free registration which results in a small piece of HTML code being emailed to the address you register with. The only other step is to add that piece of HTML to the Web page you want monitored and re-publish that page to your site.
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Analog/ReportMagic
Analog and ReportMagic are two utilities that run on your local PC and convert web logs into nicely presented HTML statistical tables and charts.
How it works
You download 2 pieces of free software - Analog does the analysis and ReportMagic generates the pretty presentation. After a quick installation and some brief configuration (telling the software where your web logs are), you are ready to go. Run each utility (analog.exe and rmagic.exe) over the logs in sequence. Takes less than a second and you then open a browser to view the reports.
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BraveNet |
Analog/Report/Magic |
| Features: |
Quick View, Week View, Month View, Six Month View, Hour of Day, Weekday, Last 50 visitors, Screen Resolution, Colour Depth, Web Browser, Operating System. Convert IP addresses to addresses: really useful to identify who has visited
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Summaries: General, Quick, Daily, Hourly, Browser
Reports: Monthly, Weekly, Daily, Hourly, Quarter-Hour, Five-Minute, Domain, Organization, Host, Referring URL, Referring Site, Search Query, Search Word, Browser, Operating System, Status Code, File Size, File Type, Directory, Request
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| No. of counters: |
Maximum of 3 |
No limit. ISP web logs monitors all your pages |
| Archives: |
Charts limited to 6 months. Referrer stats limited to last 50. |
Indefinite archive, limited only by your disc or server capacity |
| Privacy: |
Choose to keep your stats private or make them viewable directly from your site (good for quick access) |
Private by default if downloaded to your PC or network. Could be made public by re-publishing to your web site. |
| Security: |
All the stats and archives depend held on BraveNet's web site |
Stats and archives are held wherever you choose |
| Skills required: |
Registration, simple once-off web page edit |
Short installation, minor file editing, location of your ISP web logs |
| Annoyances: |
Plenty of pop-up and banner adverts, though can banish these by upgrading to the ad-free version for US$5.79 per month |
No graphical interface. |
Summary
BraveNet is great for getting a traffic counter going quickly - we liked it. All the activities are based through a browser (setting your local time zone, choosing a counter logo) apart from adding the HTML code to your web page and re-publishing the page. If you don't have the skills, we can do this for you. You also get a free counter display on the pages (up to 3) that you are monitoring. For more than 3 counters, you can register under a new name.
Analog/ReportMagic's depth is in its detail. You also get to keep the software and archives; as long as your ISP continues to record, you have logs to analyse. Nobody is suddenly going to charge you for your analysis later on, because it's DIY!
How to make it happen
need help setting or configuring we can get your statistics up and running
Contacts
BraveNet :
http://www.bravenet.com
Analog/Reportmagic :
analog.cx
reportmagic.com
Here are some good free site statistics providers:
www.hitbox.com
www.thecounter.com
counter.hitslink.com
www.webstat.com
The daddy of them all - commercial and professional
www.webtrendslive.com
-IB-
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3. Printer maintenance - turn hum drum into hum, hum
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What is it ?
You know how to replace the toner in you laser printer, maybe even the drum and a good clean.
But what happens when those 'game over' type messages start appearing?
Look out for 200K
At around 200,000 to 250,000 printed pages, many HP printers are deemed to nearing their "end of life", commonly referred to as EOL (presumably to avoid offending the actual printers themselves). It's easy to print a status check telling you how many pages have been printed to date using the printer menu or manual.
But this life can be extended with a "maintenance kit".
Benefits
Your capital costs will be recouped easily compared to the printer's extended lifetime, not to mention insurance and depreciation charges. And if you don't do it soon, the consequences could be no printer for a day or so while you scrabble around trying to buy a new one in a rush!
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What does a maintenance kit do ?
It's like resetting the clock on a car with an engine replacement - you get another 200,000 or so pages out of it!
Effectively stripping out all of the key moving and worn parts and leaving very little except the original case, a maintenance kit typically contains a new toner, drum, feed rollers and fuser (the very hot bit that sticks the yucky toner to the page)!
How much ?
For a little under £200, you get an almost new laser.
A qualified engineer (like one of us) is best at this sort of job because the process is slightly different for the various brands of printer.
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Make it happen! Contact us here.
-IB-
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4. Email and calendar sharing goes open source
A web-based alternative to Outlook, that runs on multiple platforms, doesn't need a server and is free? Surely not!
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What is it ?
If you thought that "you pays your money and takes your choice" was the only choice, then the altruistic nature of the Open Source Applications Foundation's product called "Chandler" may come as a shock ...
"It will be free and will run on the Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms. It will not require a server or complex administration"
We have reviewed Web-based diary and calendar applications before, but Chandler's key features go much further by handling the classic areas of email, contact and task management, messaging and information sharing all in one place.
What's in a name ?
Although this application bears no links to selling candles or fitting out ships, it does contain some interesting goodies:
In the Email section, aside from the usual POP/IMAP retrieval, HTML and auto-completion of addressees, Chandler handles auto-archiving of old mail, full-text indexing for fast searches, user-defined rules and filters, transparent encryption and - topically enough - automatic spam filtering.
To complete the messaging suite there is integrated Instant Messaging.
The Calendar contains all the expected day/week/month views and enables simple recurring appointments and scheduling time with colleagues or overlaying another person's calendar(s).
On the Information Sharing front, you can literally 'peer' into other users' data via remote peer-to-peer browsing (a gap in Outlook's capabilities), but under the control of a flexible security model. Thus file and document sharing can be implemented as on a central server network as well as directory-like services to look up address in your own or another person's contact list.
The blurring of traditional office boundaries thus includes remote/home workers as easily as anyone else and Chandler provides them with automatic replication of data and synchronisation to their mobile/PDA devices.
All data is easy to set up as user-defined categories, so configure views and structures just how you like them.
Who is it for ?
The aim is to target individual users and organizations with fewer than 100 people, so it's ideal for the not-for-profit sector.
Benefits
It's everything you wanted from office communications, but via a browser and on the Net.
Drawbacks
Chandler ain't finished yet.
Why it works
You know how to use a browser don't you? And most people know what to expect from Outlook.
The key is simple Web-style navigation and presentation. Even user data can have URL references, so that web-based navigation concepts like links and bookmarks (familiar to most already) can address objects and
Vista (Chandler's prototype predecessor) thus has a web-browser style location bar and can address objects using a URL of the form: vista://jabber_id@package/view/object.
Hey! No web server or fixed IPs needed!
Who are OSAF ?
A more prestigious bunch of founders you couldn't find!
Mitch Kapor, Lotus founder and Agenda PIM designer, heads up the brains behind OSAF. Followed closely by Andy Hertzfeld, (original Macintosh design team), Tim O'Reilly (founder and president of publisher O'Reilly & Associates) and in the last few days, Mitchell Baker from mozilla.org, the first browser designers.
The nonprofit foundation has so far found funding for a first release of Chandler.
http://www.osafoundation.org
What's their mission (Jim) ?
"... to create and gain wide adoption for software applications of uncompromising quality using Open Source methods"
Contacts
Check out Chandler's feature list
Related articles:
See NetWare's NetMail 3.1.
-IB-
Acknowledgements: Exchangeadmin
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5. Archiving email - fly-tipping goes digital
Mountains of old emails? You could be dumping it all with an automated bin emptying service!
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What is it ?
It's one of those chores that always gets postponed and, just like emptying the rubbish, can have unpleasant side effects if you forget!
Picking through the old messages in your inbox or not-so-new mail folder and weeding out all those redundant communications about long-dead projects and one-liners telling us who was off sick, is a job that usually gets shoved on to the back burner. Indeed, having seen mailboxes bulging with in excess of 20,000 messages, it's clear that some 'magpies' never manage their accounts from the day they are created!
But did you know that - paralleling the way that your council provides rubbish collection - mail applications often build in services to cart off the digital equivalent of your bags of old post?
First in, first out
These services often go under the title of "Archiving" - a euphemism as far as I'm concerned, because I just dump it all.
I reckon that any messages older than a year that I haven't sidelined into a specific folder can't be that important any more. Even more so for my subscriptions, which are highly ephemeral.
So I have set up some simple rules to carry out the otherwise tedious task of finding the oldest ones and turning them into thin air.
And if you are a systems administrator, implementing these services could be the difference between buying a new mail server disc every year (with all the disruption that brings) or making it last the lifetime of the machine.
Benefits
| Typical archiving times for email folders |
| Junk/Spam |
3 months |
| E-zines or subscriptions |
6 months |
| General |
12 months |
- Save huge amounts of time re-reading and deleting old emails
- Mail client runs faster
- End user hoarding of redundant emails
- Save crucial server disc space, and make your server disc last longer
- Cathartic peace of mind without lifting a finger!
How to make it happen
- In Microsoft Outlook you set one parameter to determine how often to run archiving and then, in each folder, the age of messages to archive.
- In Pegasus Mail you make as many 'time rules' as you want, then attach each to one or more folders.
To set up archiving, pull down ...
- | Tools | Mail filtering rules | Create a general rule set
- click New, call it (say) "180days"
- click Open | Add rule | Message age
- fill in "180" days, select Action = Delete
- click OK, Save & Close rules
- right-click a folder to be archived and select either
"Attach folder-open or folder-close filter set"
- highlight new rule and click Open
To run an auto-archive on demand (manually), simply ...
- open and close your chosen folder(s)
Alternatively, you can archive any open folder with any rule you choose by pulling down ...
- | Tools | Mail filtering rules | Apply general rule set to folder
For both applications you can alternatively opt to move archived messages into another folder (though this rather destroys the point of freeing up computing resources) or move/extract them into a physical archive.
A note or two of caution for the latter though.
- Moving old email or entire folders off to the local C: drive may seem to combine the advantages of space-saving while still keeping your archives, but beware of using a shared area of the local drive and inadvertently making all your correspondences (albeit out of date ones) suddenly public!
- Networks that have roaming profiles set up will copy those personal settings back to the server. Thus saving folders in an area like \My Documents\ - apparently locally - will still consume server disc space and furthermore, will slow up your logging in and out times!
Related articles
Cut down on email overload by ...
Better management of your email
Reducing email duplications and excess storage
-IB-
Paul Craig
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6. Lycoris - Linux for dummies?
The days of complaints that Linux was too difficult to get to grips with may be over.
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What is it ?
You may have thought that "Lycoris" sounds more like a member of the Amaryllis family of flowers - indeed it is, Lycoris aurea is a golden lily - but another Lycoris species is making a big name for itself in areas outside the natural world.
What does it do ?
Lycoris Desktop/LX's claim to fame is that it gives you the look and feel of Windows, runs on average hardware and - the biggie - it's a doddle to set up; you don't have to be in that Catch 22 situation of knowing Linux already to install and use it.
What's more, you get your own full copy for under £30.
So who are these guys ?
The Lycoris outfit sits uncomfortably close, in global terms, to its potential rival Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Even the desktop layout looks eerily like Windows XP, right down to the background.
Unpacking the box - and the jargon
If you're a newbie, you may feel reassured that traditional Linux geeks are grumbling about the way Lycoris dumbs down its terms - or alternatively, you could say - talks plain English!
Numerous installers report that Lycoris is easy to configure and correctly identifies and installs all the devices connected to your machine - peripherals like a mouse, sound card, a CD-RW drive, network card, USB-connected printers and of course monitors - making the process a 15-minute job in some cases.
Even notoriously awkward laptops succumbed to the Lycoris equivalent of the old Plug-n-Play (dead machine to web machine in 30 minutes), as well as running happily on obsolescent AMD K6-3 450 MHz processors.
The born-multitasking Linux system finishes in slightly cocky fashion by offering you a card game (Patience/Solitaire) to play while it completes the installation!
This kind of effortlessness is going win favours with system administrators too, whatever their current operating system bias. Indeed, one such claimed to have completed the install without resort to any documentation, including hooking up his new Lycoris desktops to JetDirect-networked printers on the NT4 server network.
I'm not convinced I can do without Windows yet
Want to keep your old Windows on the same workstation?
Lycoris can handle that too. A 'dual-boot' menu can prompt you whether to go into the Windows operating system or into the Lycoris/Linux ext3 file system instead.
Summary
On a planet where monopolies don't survive for long, diversity is feature that Nature embraces; Microsoft might do well to take note of the newly-budding Lycoris.
Contacts
Lycoris site:
http://www.lycoris.com/
Read John Gowin's very good sample installation of Lycoris.
Want the actual "Linux For Dummies®" book?
Now in its 4th edition, Dee-Ann LeBlanc, Melanie Hoag, Evan Blomquist
ISBN: 0-7645-1660-4, US $29.99
Essentials for first-time Linux users: preparing your PC, installing, connecting to a network or the Internet, working with the GNOME interface, playing media files, and working with the file system.
Using Linux as a server, embedded or turnkey system, supercomputer, real-time controller.
Two CDs included with this book contain the latest distribution of Red Hat Linux.
-IB-
Acknowledgements: X-News, Linuxorbit, VNUnet, bulbmeister.com
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7. New McAfee anti-virus engine and updates
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Revving up to next year
McAfee will be launching a new AntiVirus engine - the common component within all their anti-virus products - next year that will be known as version 4180.
The engine is currently available on beta test as the 4240 AntiVirus Engine Beta 1.
If you are still running the the version 4150 engine or below, you should upgrade to the current 4160 version.
Problems with the 4160 engine ?
Since the summer, we had suspected the existence of a bug in the 4.1.60 McAfee engine. Sure enough, it was confirmed and, more importantly, fixed.
So if your Windows 95/98/Me machine exhibits any of the following characteristics when running McAfee ...
- Blue screens (Blue Screen Of Death)
- Excessive machine slowdown
- System clock time loss
- Jerky mouse cursor movement
- 'Stuttering' sound cards
... it's worth downloading the 4160 Engine Hotfix 1 for Windows 95/98/ME from:
http://www.nai.com/naicommon/download/enginehotfix.asp
| McAfee life cycle for Windows |
| Platform |
End of life |
| Win95, Win98, WinME |
30 June 2004 |
VirusScan for Windows 2000 & Windows NT 4.0
Latest supported version will be 4.5.1 SP1 |
4.5.0 SP1 31 December 2002 |
| Full details see McAfee end of life cycle |
Note that McAfee support for old version of Microsoft Windows will begin to cease soon (see panel) and that if you don't apply the Hotfix 1 described above to the 4160 engine, then your for Windows 95/98/ME will run out on 31 December this year. For those who do apply the Hotfix 1, support for these operating systems will continue until 30 June 2003.
How to make it happen
If you have an ongoing FM contract we can bundle this fix into your programme of work. For those with support contracts only, we can arrange a FM day for you. Talk to us or write to us here.
Contacts
NAI anti-virus updates:
http://www.mcafeeb2b.com/naicommon/download/
-IB-
Acknowledgements: Leanne Weekes, Nick Arkas, Philip Anthony
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8. NetMail 3.1 arrives
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What is it ?
Novell's new NetMail 3.1 is a scalable, high-performance e-mail and calendaring system and claims to simplify dramatically e-mail administration normally required.
Based on Internet-standard messaging and security protocols, this essential component of Novell's "one Net" vision, it thus runs on most platforms, including Windows XP/NT/2000 and Linux/Unix as well as Novell's traditional NetWare.
Originally called Novell Internet Messaging Server (NIMS) in development, NetMail 3.1 now supports remote and roaming PDA devices Personal Digital Assistants. Available through any web browser, NetMail also supports multiple clients such as Outlook, Eudora, Novell GroupWise and Netscape Mail.
Test drive NetMail - free!
NetMail has had a showcase site at MyRealBox (www.myrealbox.com) for several years, demonstrating and developing the product by allowing any Internet surfer to take up a free email account and, latterly, to try the calendaring facilities too.
How much ?
Expect to pay around US$15 per user on your own site.
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Features
- runs on NetWare, Windows XP/2000/NT, Solaris and Linux platforms
- no special email or calendaring client software needed for users
- scalability from 2 to 200,000+ users on a single server and can distribute e-mail and calendaring services across multiple servers
- supports Internet-standard messaging and security protocols: SMTP, Post Office Protocol (POP3) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP4)
- low hardware requirements, even at more than a million messages a day
- supports PDA synchronisation for Palm and Pocket PC handheld devices
- multithreaded to take advantage of better system performance offered by multiprocessor servers
- integrates tightly with eDirectory, Novell's established directory service for looking up user and server configuration information
- security supports Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 3.0, Open SSL implementation of Transport Layer Security (TLS), and Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (S/MIME) protocols for encryption and security
- supports multiple time zones and 25 languages
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Contacts
Netmail 3.1 at a glance:
www.novell.com/products/netmail/quicklook.html
Register your own account at http://www.myrealbox.com
More at: www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2002/05/pr02038.html
-IB-
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Overview of InfoBulletin
InfoBulletin is written and published by Co-Operative Systems and contains Information Technology tips that we come across during everyday research and support activities and which may be useful in improving your IT operations, either internally or on the Internet.
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Interpreting Information Technology
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is how Dell is describing its latest OptiPlex-series desktop PC. A new company record, the SX260 abandons 'redundant' (Dell claims) PCI slots altogether and bundles as many components as possible on the motherboard. The virtually notebook-size footprint case weighs in at 3.5Kg, while still delivering the performance of their bread-and-butter GX260 standard OptiPlex. However diminutive the SX260 is, you can be sure they won't be calling it "Tiny".