Vol. 13, #33 - Aug 11, 2008 - Issue #687 Black Hat News: Vista Security 'Rendered Useless' This issue of WServerNews is sponsored by Editor's Corner More On Electronic Bermuda Triangles Black Hat News: Vista Security 'Rendered Useless' WEBCAST: Fight Spam, Viruses, Trojans & More... Upcoming Sunbelt/Double-Take Seminars Quotes of the Week Admin Toolbox Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Tech Briefing Lenovo Crashes Eee Party With IdeaPads Windows XP Still Outselling Windows Vista? Tools Make Capacity Planning Easier For Windows Shops Define SharePoint Parameters Before Installing Five Exchange Server Backup Worst Practices To Avoid Understanding Hyper-V Partitions And Device Drivers Windows Server News Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 Goes Gold VMware Launches Windows Scripting Environment Microsoft To Predict Exploitability Of Its Own Bugs WServer Third Party News ZDNet Shoot-out: VIPRE vs. Norton AV 2008 and Kaspersky AV 2007 Microsoft To Give Security Vendors Early Peek At Patches WServerNews FAVE Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. WServerNews - Product of the Week Do's and Don'ts of RODC in Server 2008-Free eBrief from Greg Shields Do's and Don'ts of RODC in Windows Server 2008-Free eBrief from Greg Shields Receive new eBrief from noted IT consultant and author Greg Shields on understanding Security implications of RODC's in Server 2008 when you try Active Administrator from ScriptLogic. Active Administrator is a comprehensive AD management and auditing solution providing centralized auditing, RSoP, offline GPO repository, & object-level restores of AD objects. In the ebrief, learn best practices for implementing RODC's (Read-Only Domain Controllers) new in Windows Server 2008, & implications for its uses. Download now! http://www.wservernews.com/080811-RODC-eBrief Editor's Corner More On Electronic Bermuda Triangles I promised I would come back on this one. Lots of you over the last few weeks reported back with either personal stories or links to websites that reported on similar effects at different spots in the world. It turns out that there are quite a few instances of electromagnetic interference that have stuck up their ugly heads. We are working on some kind of way to get this reported and warn other people. Let me know if you have some creative way you'd suggest to get people to report on this and be able to check on it. Remember that I had to tow my Camry to the dealership? After a few weeks, Toyota came through and refunded my expenses for that mishap, that was good service! Tell me your ideas for a dedicated website to report on this phenomenon? Black Hat News: Vista Security 'Rendered Useless' LAS VEGAS -- Two security researchers have developed a new technique that essentially bypasses all of the memory protection safeguards in the Windows Vista operating system, an advance that many in the security community say will have far-reaching implications not only for Microsoft, but also on how the entire technology industry thinks about attacks. In a presentation at the Black Hat briefings, Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov of VMware Inc. discussed the new methods they've found to get around Vista Protections such as Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and others by using Java, ActiveX controls and .NET objects to load arbitrary content into Web browsers. By taking advantage of the way that browsers, specifically Internet Explorer, handle active scripting and .NET objects, the pair have been able to load essentially whatever content they want into a location of their choice on a user's machine. More at SearchSecurity: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Vista-Security WEBCAST: Fight Spam, Viruses, Trojans & More... Protecting your Organization from Spam and Malware with Ninja Email Security. Securing your Exchange Server is key to protecting your enterprise environment from spam, viruses, and other malware. In this webcast Sunbelt will explain the benefits of using an 'all-in-one' integrated and policy-based email security solution versus separate products on your Exchange Server for antivirus, antispam, attachment filtering, and disclaimers. Learn how Ninja Email Security helps you to fight spam, viruses, trojans, phishing and other email security threats with a series of 'best-of-breed' plug-ins. When: August 12, 2008 2:00 PM (EDT) Please register here: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Ninja-Email-Security-Webcast Upcoming Sunbelt/Double-Take Seminars We'd like to invite you to attend the following seminars: "Implementing an Effective Email Archiving Strategy for Exchange" - Join Sunbelt and Mike Osterman, president and founder of Osterman Research, Inc., one of the leading analyst firms in the messaging and collaboration space, for an engaging discussion on how an effective email archiving strategy can help you deal with the issues resulting from growth in email storage and new discovery and privacy requirements. Hosted at Microsoft in Chicago, IL on Thursday, August 21st. Register here: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-DT-Seminar-Chicago "Recovery Made Easy for Exchange, SQL, and other Critical Applications" - Join Sunbelt and Double-Take Software as we discuss strategies for implementing high availability, remote availability and offsite disaster recovery solutions for SQL, Exchange and other mission critical applications using Double-Take. Learn about Double-Take v5.0 and Double-Take's NEW solutions that power your keys to recoverability. Hosted at Sheraton Suites in Calgary, AB on Tuesday, August 12th. Register here: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-DT-Seminar-Calgary Hosted at Microsoft in Seattle, WA on Wednesday, August 13th. Register here: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-DT-Seminar-Seattle Hosted at Microsoft in Kansas City, KS on Friday, August 15th. Register here: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-DT-Seminar-Kansas-City Hosted at Microsoft in Hartford, CT on Thursday, September 25th. Register here: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-DT-Seminar-Hartford Quotes of the Week "My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people, those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there." -- Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) "We make money the old fashioned way. We print it." -- Art Rolnick, former Chief Economist, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." -- attributed to Edmund Burke Thank you for being a WServerNews subscriber. No trees were killed in the sending of this message, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced. Please tell your friends about us. They can subscribe here: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Subscribe Hope you enjoy this issue of WServerNews! Warm regards, Stu  |   Email me: feedback@wservernews.com Time To Kill Those PST Files! You all are aware of the fact that PST files are a major contributor to loss of time, especially on the admin side of email. Importing these PST files in a searchable archive, which is a central and transparent repository for all users, can save enormous amounts of time for all email users and the admin alike. PST files cause -all- kinds of storage problems, like bloated and slow backups and backup windows rapidly expanding so that they run into the next morning. They also cause risks in the legal and security areas like lost email, laptops that disappear, and no oversight which is a lawyer's nightmare. You should really check out Sunbelt Exchange Archiver. It solves all these problems in one fell swoop: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Sunbelt-Exchange-Archiver Admin Toolbox Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Automatically fix links when you move or rename files! Patented technology lets you perform data migrations without broken links: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-LinkFixerPlus ScriptLogic's File System Auditor: Free Trial. Make it easy to track user access to your Windows file servers! http://www.wservernews.com/080811-File-System-Auditor mPowerTools will Rock Your World! Simplify life with a search & replace tool. No hassle with custom reporting and ability to fix network's security! http://www.wservernews.com/080811-mPowerTools Protect Your Organization with a Strong, Relevant Acceptable Use Policy. Get the E-Policy Best Practices Guide with Free Templates from St. Bernard! http://www.wservernews.com/080811-E-Policy-Guide Tech Briefing Lenovo Crashes Eee Party With IdeaPads Better late than never, Lenovo has launched the IdeaPad S9 and S10 sub-notebooks, the company's answer to the embarrassing success of the Eee PC from rival Asus. The S9 features an 8.9-inch screen, integrated 802.11g Wi-Fi, 512MB of memory, 80GB of hard disk space or a 4GB solid state drive (SSD), and is built around Intel's 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 chip. The more expensive S10 features a 10.2-inch screen, 1GB of RAM, and a larger 160GB hard disk. Users can choose from Linux or the supposedly extinct Windows XP. More of this article at ComputerWorld: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Lenovo-IdeaPads Windows XP Still Outselling Windows Vista? While Microsoft excitedly tries to sway public opinion by touting that Vista License sales top 180 Million units, Hewlett-Packard (HP) was busy smacking Microsoft down -- reportedly shipping PCs with a Vista Business license but with Windows XP pre-loaded in the majority of business computers sold since the June 30 Windows XP execution date established by Microsoft -- casting a lot of doubt over how many copies of Vista have actually been sold. InfoPackets has the story: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Vista-Licenses Tools Make Capacity Planning Easier For Windows Shops One of the most important and perhaps most difficult tasks facing IT managers is meeting current hardware needs while predicting future needs for growth. In this tip, SearchWinIT.com contributor Gary Olsen describes how Microsoft's System Center Capacity Planner and other capacity planning tools can help you get started with mapping out the future. (registration required) http://www.wservernews.com/080811-System-Center-Capacity-Planner Define SharePoint Parameters Before Installing One of the biggest mistakes IT shops make with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) is that they often install it with little forethought. In this Q&A, SharePoint expert Bill English outlines some common pitfalls to avoid when installing MOSS. http://www.wservernews.com/080811-MOSS Five Exchange Server Backup Worst Practices To Avoid There are many ways to be creative when protecting Exchange Server data, but not all methods are flawless. If you're backing up Microsoft Exchange Server, you should be aware of these five Exchange Server backup worst practices to avoid any disasters. http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Exchange-Worst-Practices Understanding Hyper-V Partitions And Device Drivers Like many other technologies, Microsoft's Hyper-V has its own language of terms and definitions, separate from that of our normal virtualization vernacular. In this tip, learn the terms that are relevant to how device drivers work in Hyper-V, which will help with installation of the product, managing performance and troubleshooting any issues that may arise. (registration required) http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Hyper-V-Partitions Windows Server News Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 Goes Gold Redmond released SQL Server 2008 to manufacturing and, as an evaluation edition, to subscribers of its Microsoft Development Network and TechNet services. Policy-based management is one feature of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 expected to appeal to IT managers and database administrators. Learn more about what's new with SQL Server 2008. http://www.wservernews.com/080811-SQL-Server-2008-Gold VMware Launches Windows Scripting Environment VMware released its VMware Infrastructure (VI) Toolkit (for Windows). The kit is a free addition to its scripting toolbox, meant to help automate your virtual datacenter. It is essentially an easy-to-use scripting interface if you have multiple VMware ESX hypervisors or VMware VirtualCenter instances. The thing is based on PowerShell, and you can do things like cloning, moving, starting or stopping virtual machines and hosts. The toolkit includes easy "commandlets" for deploying hundreds of VMs across IT infrastructure. They encourage you to submit your scripts to the community, and there will be a contest for the best script created using the VI Toolkit. The winner will get an all-expense paid trip to VMworld 2008 Las Vegas or $5,000. The VI Toolkit (for Windows) is at: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-VMware-Infrastructure-Toolkit Microsoft To Predict Exploitability Of Its Own Bugs In a move toward improving its metrics mojo, Microsoft has announced that as of October, it will rate all new vulnerabilities according to the likelihood that they can actually be exploited. It will also will share information with some vendors before everyone else gets patches. More at ComputerWorld: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Microsoft-Bugs WServer Third Party News ZDNet Shoot-out: VIPRE vs. Norton AV 2008 and Kaspersky AV 2007 We told you we had put a lot of thought into making sure that VIPRE would not be a performance hog. Well, ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes put our claims to the test. He compared VIPRE with the latest Norton and Kaspersky code, and showed the graphs. We really have nothing to add. Just look at his results. He wrote: "The bottom line - Security software can have a shocking effect on performance, and can take a new system and make it feel like one that's a few years old. I'm pleased to see that Sunbelt Software's claim that VIPRE doesn't hog system resources and doesn't slow down a PC isn't just marketing hyperbole but is actually true." Check out those graphs! http://www.wservernews.com/080811-VIPRE-vs-Norton2008-vs-Kaspersky2007 Microsoft To Give Security Vendors Early Peek At Patches Microsoft plans to give security vendors a head start in what has become a monthly race against the hackers. Starting in October, the company will provide security vendors with early access to technical details of its monthly security patches before the software updates are actually released. This will give the companies that write attack-blocking code a bit of a cushion as they write and test their security software. Microsoft calls this initiative the Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) and says that participating companies must sell commercial Windows security products and have a large customer base -- and no, sellers of attack-based penetration testing tools are not invited. Early participants include IBM, Juniper Networks, and 3Com's Tipping Point division, but other companies are expected to sign up. More at NetworkWorld: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-MAPP WServerNews FAVE Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. This unique specimen of "EuroGeek" is worth watching. They created a new supercomputer with standard gaming hardware that costs less than $6,000 to build. The system uses four NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Fastra-GPU-Supercomputer How to carjack a top Google exec -- according to Google. To demonstrate how they feel that Google Street View and Google Earth invade personal privacy, computer users at the National Legal And Policy Center put together a "detailed dossier" of information on one of Google's leading lights (PDF). http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Google-Carjack Katie Hodgson and Darren McWalters are getting married in the air while standing on top of three biplanes: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Biplane-Wedding MIT has developed a simple method to split water molecules and produce oxygen gas, a discovery that paves the way for large-scale use of solar power: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Solar-Energy Video with Funny Windows error messages: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Windows-Errors A flight demonstration of a huge radio-controlled C-17 model aircraft with four jet engines: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-RC-C-17 Japanese automaker Mitsuoka has revealed the production version of it's unique-looking mid-engined Orochi sports car, Top Gear takes it for a test drive: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Mitsuoka-Orochi Slow Motion Lightning. If you thought lightning couldn't be any more awesome, you thought wrong. The power of slow motion lets you see every last spark as it dances across the sky. http://www.wservernews.com/080811-Slow-Motion-Lightning In the future, we'll be able to make anything we want on 3-D printers. Paper prices are going to go through the roof, and recycling will have a whole new meaning: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-3D-Printer Forgotten PC history: The true origins of the personal computer, 40 years now! http://www.wservernews.com/080811-PC-History These two short videos show the recent DNS problem and how long it took for everyone to patch it, worldwide, graphically... Very interesting: http://www.wservernews.com/080811-DNS-Problem WServerNews - Product of the Week Do's and Don'ts of RODC in Server 2008-Free eBrief from Greg Shields Receive new eBrief from noted IT consultant and author Greg Shields on understanding Security implications of RODC's in Server 2008 when you try Active Administrator from ScriptLogic. Active Administrator is a comprehensive AD management and auditing solution providing centralized auditing, RSoP, offline GPO repository, & object-level restores of AD objects. In the ebrief, learn best practices for implementing RODC's (Read-Only Domain Controllers) new in Windows Server 2008, & implications for its uses. Download now! http://www.wservernews.com/080811-ScriptLogic-RODC-eBrief

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