WServerNews (formerly W2Knews)

Vol. 13, #51 - Dec 15, 2008 - Issue #705

Want To Get Your Hands On Win7 Beta?

This issue of WServerNews is sponsored by

Editors Corner
- Want To Get Your Hands On Win7 Beta?
- VIPRE Enterprise Finalist in 2009 SC Awards // 20-40% More Efficient
- Microsoft Warns Of New Windows Bug, Says Attacks Under Way
- Quotes of the Week
Webinars and Seminars
- Webcast: Affordable, Enterprise Email Archiving
Admin Toolbox
- Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without
Tech Briefing
- Fun Windows Admin IQ Test
- Which Operating System Is Best For Solid-State Drives?
- Researcher: "Vulnerabilities Play Only A Minor Role In Malware Spread"
- Spam Levels Climb As Criminals Replace Crippled Botnets
- Strategies For Troubleshooting Windows XP Errors
- Economic Downturns Call For Active Directory Proficiency
- Opting For Hyper-V In Laptop-Based Virtualization
Windows Server News
- Tip: New features in SQL Server Management Studio 2008
- Weighing The Performance Impact Of SQL Server Virtualization
- SharePoint E-zine Volume 4: Balancing SharePoint Governance
WServer Thrid Party News
- Double-Take Year End Discounts & Payment Options
- New SNSI Vulnerabilities Update
WServerNews Fave Links
- This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff
Product of the Week
- Make It Easy To Track User Access To Your Windows File Servers!

Make It Easy To Track User Access To Your Windows File Servers!

Monitor your users' every action and get powerful reporting and up-to-the-minute alerts on activity! With File System Auditor from ScriptLogic, you'll be able to audit file access on Windows file servers, generate easy-to-understand compliance reports, and create alerts tied to file system events - all from a centralized management console. Create an audit trail on your file server and know that your access controls are working. File System Auditor protects sensitive information by reporting attempts to access and modify files and folders, with who did it and when. Download a Free Trial of File System Auditor Today!
http://www.wservernews.com/081215-File-System-Auditor

	Editors Corner

Welcome to the last WServerNews issue this year. The next one you will get is the 2009 Crystal Ball Special. Send me your own 2009 predictions to feedback@WServerNews.com and if yours gets printed we'll get you a VIPRE t-shirt. (include your snail mail address). -- If you waited to get special end-of year deals, now is the time to act and get those PO's in before December 31st -- Happy Holidays and a great New Year! Want To Get Your Hands On Win7 Beta? In that case you want to make it to the MSDN Developer Conference in January. Redmond will be giving people DVDs with Win7 beta. If you are antsy and a TechNet subscriber you can at least start with a Vista SP2 download. SP2 has improvements on performance and security, and what they claimed "support for new types of hardware and emerging standards that will grow in importance in the coming months". SP2 also has support for the most recent Bluetooth specs and Blu-ray high-def media encoding. Last but not least, it has the new Windows Connect Now Wi-Fi config tool. You could see Vista SP2 as the new gold standard, as this code will carry on in the new, optimized Win7. In other Redmond related news, they just released their biggest security update in five years which fixes 28 flaws in Windows, Office, IE, ActiveX development tools and more. Make sure you TEST these fixes before you deploy them. VIPRE Enterprise Finalist in 2009 SC Awards // 20-40% More Efficient VIPRE Enterprise has been named a finalist in the 2009 SC Awards program for outstanding achievement in information technology (IT) security. VIPRE was named in the Best Anti-Malware Solution category of the Reader Trust Award competition, which honors best-in-class security products and services. VIPRE Enterprise was selected from more than 600 entries submitted in more than 30 technology categories. Winners will be chosen by a panel of readers that represent the circulation of SC Magazine. "VIPRE Enterprise is among today's most respected security products as chosen by our panel. Security is a key challenge for IT organizations and businesses worldwide, and our readers recognize that companies such as Sunbelt Software are helping them meet their security challenges." said SC Magazine Editor-in-Chief Illena Armstrong. Here are the other nominees, useful for short-lists: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-SC-Awards And this week more VIPRE news was released. Analyst research confirms that VIPRE Enterprise is 20-40% more efficient than competitors' bloated antivirus architectures. Titled 'VIPRE Takes a Bite out of Bloatware,' the October 2008 report surveyed 50 small and midsized consultants and corporate SMBs with 30 to 500 end users to determine their views on the current state of antivirus, antispyware and anti-malware technologies. While respondents regarded these technologies as essential to combating security threats posed by rogue code including viruses, trojans, bots, zombies, spyware, spam and blended malware, they complained about the poor performance of most products and the effects on their operations: here's the report - PDF (no registration) http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Bloatware Microsoft Warns Of New Windows Bug, Says Attacks Under Way On the same day that Redmond released its biggest batch of security updates in more than five years, they also warned Windows users of a critical zero-day IE7 bug. Microsoft downplayed the threat posed by the IE7 bug, which researchers have said is in a browser rendering component and is triggered by misuse of the HTML "span" tag. The fix is do three things: Set "Internet" and "Local intranet" security zones to "high." To do that, users must select "Internet Options" from the Tools menu, click the Security tab, click on "Internet," then move the slider to the "High" setting. Repeat for "Local intranet." Click OK. Disable Active Scripting. Choose "Internet Options" from the Tools menu, click the Security tab, click the "Internet" icon and then the "Custom level" button. In the ensuing dialog, under the "Scripting" section, in the "Active scripting" item, click "Disable," then OK. Enable DEP (data execution prevention). Select "Internet Options" from the Tools menu, click the Advanced tab, then check "Enable memory protection to help mitigate online attacks." Click OK. Quotes of the Week "To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness." -- Scottish Queen- Mary Stuart, born December 8, 1542. "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." -- Herbert Spencer, (1820-1903) British author, economist, philosopher. Warm regards, and 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/081215-Subscribe

Hope you enjoy this issue of WServerNews! Warm regards, Stu |

Email me: feedback@wservernews.com

Automated Uninstall of Symantec AV

No more 2-day SEP V11 Migration Classes! Sunbelt built VIPRE Enterprise; a completely new technology combining corporate antivirus plus an enterprise antispyware solution for total endpoint security designed by admins for admins. And that means EASY DEPLOYMENT. Save your IT budget and don't renew products from Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, Learn how VIPRE Enterprise takes much less resources than the competition! It's clearly time to ditch expensive, bloated, old-style AV products. Get your 30-day eval here:
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	Webinars and Seminars

Webcast: Affordable, Enterprise Email Archiving Join us for a look at Sunbelt Software's Exchange email archiving and compliance solution, Sunbelt Exchange Archiver. If you need a powerful, easy to use, enterprise-class email archiving tool that automatically enables you to comply with all requirements, and allows you or your end-users to transparently retrieve any archived email, then don't miss this webinar! The webinar will explain the features and benefits of implementing a powerful email archiving solution on your Exchange Server at an affordable price. Learn how Sunbelt Exchange Archiver can help you: Improve Exchange performance Eliminate PST headaches Dramatically reduce backup times Use up to 80% smaller message store Meet compliance requirements And more When: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 2:00 PM (EST) Please register here: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Email-Archiving

	Admin Toolbox

Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Simplify App Deployment: MSI Studio for SCCM Promotion 40% off! This Month Only: Purchase MSI Studio for SCCM and Receive 40% off of MSRP. http://www.wservernews.com/081215-MSI-Studio Having Second Thoughts About Your Current Web Filter? Get No-Nonsense Web Filtering from iPrism and Get Your Switch Kit Today! http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Switch-Kit Finally, Powerful Endpoint Security That Isn't A Resource Hog. Ask for a quote for the extremely attractive VIPRE Competitive Upgrade Program: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-VIPREEnterprise Virtualization saves time and money. But how do you get fault tolerance for those VMs? Use Double-Take for P2V and V2V migration and replication: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Double-Take

	Tech Briefing

Fun Windows Admin IQ Test Windows Admin IQ test. This one is fun. See if you can beat my score of 90 out of 100 maximum. I missed two questions out of twenty: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Admin-IQ-Test Which Operating System Is Best For Solid-State Drives? You'd be surprised. I'm not going to divulge which one it is, so you have to go to ComputerWorld and find out. What I can say is that it's 5-8% faster because it does not run any applications in the background. Is that enough of a hint? LOL: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Operating-Systems Researcher: "Vulnerabilities Play Only A Minor Role In Malware Spread" Computer users are their own worst enemies, Trend Micro warned this week, as it released data that shows software bugs were the source of just 5% of the past year's infections. The majority of the attacks carried out by 2008's top 100 pieces of malware were caused by users surfing to malicious sites and then accepting some kind of download, they said. From Jan. 1 to Nov. 25, the top 100 attack programs infected 53% of their victims by duping them into downloading something from the Internet. An additional 12% of the infections tracked globally were caused by users opening e-mail attachments. So end-user education still is really important because social engineering is by far the most popular vector. And it helps to Spam Levels Climb As Criminals Replace Crippled Botnets A month ago, a rogue hosting company called McColo was yanked off the Internet, and spam levels dropped dramatically. But now the volumes are again up. According to IronPort, junk mail volumes have partially recovered since the takedown of McColo which had cybercriminal clients that ran some of the biggest spam-blasting and malware-spewing botnets in the world. The criminals have replaced their command-and-control servers and the bots are unfortunately coming on line again. Strategies For Troubleshooting Windows XP Errors The process of troubleshooting Windows XP errors can be a little tricky to say the least. Read this tip from SearchEnterpriseDesktop.com to find out what techniques will make the process easier:(Requires Registration) http://www.wservernews.com/081215-WXP-Errors Economic Downturns Call For Active Directory Proficiency As corporations downsize employee rosters in a soft economy, IT managers must draw on their skills as administrators of directories and identity assets to maintain corporate data security. Laid-off employees, particularly disgruntled ones who may have had access to key corporate repositories, can threaten an organization. IT managers need global knowledge -- from knowing the enterprise directories and extranet directories and the location of repositories to knowing the people in charge of directory access and which ones have super user privileges: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Active-Directory-Proficiency Opting For Hyper-V In Laptop-Based Virtualization Running a virtual machine off a laptop with Microsoft Hyper-V gives users a "travel sized" hypervisor, if you will. But the convenience of a portable virtualization demo is not without drawbacks. In this tip, learn what shortcomings you need to consider before you make the move on your laptop to Hyper-V:(Requires Registration) http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Hyper-V

	Windows Server News

Tip: New features in SQL Server Management Studio 2008 SQL Server Management Studio 2008 comes packed with the new features that have been on your wish list. IntelliSense support is finally here, offering features like syntax help, word completion and a list of stored procedure parameters. Take a look at these features and others, such as region outlining to quickly hide or reveal sections of code, multi-server queries to execute one script against multiple servers simultaneously and more: (Requires Registration) http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Server-Tips Weighing The Performance Impact Of SQL Server Virtualization In the last several years, and especially within the last couple, the biggest buzzword in IT has been virtualization. The spin has taken this form: Save money on servers, save money on power and there are no downsides to virtualizing your servers. Coming from marketing people, I suppose two out of three accurate points aren't that bad. SQL Server virtualization can certainly save money on servers and on power. But if your server isn't a good candidate for virtualization, then there are some big downsides. Find out more with this tip from SearchSQLServer.com: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Pros-and-Cons SharePoint E-zine Volume 4: Balancing SharePoint Governance Looking to calm your SharePoint chaos? Learn how to put in place a governance plan and service models to regain control of your SharePoint installation. Want to hand over a little responsibility to ease your administrative duties? Site owners use built-in SharePoint features to create their own site maps without any custom coding at all. Check out this month's issue for a step-by-step explanation on how to do it using out-of-the-box features. While you're at it, give your SharePoint a little high-performance tweak. Read our tips and tricks on how to fine-tune SQL Server for better SharePoint performance: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Library

WServer Thrid Party News

Double-Take Year End Discounts & Payment Options

If you are looking to protect your company's critical production data before the end of the year, look at Double-Take Disaster Recovery and Replication software, and check out the following:

New payment options are available for those who want to purchase in 2008 but may not have budget until 2009.
Special Double-Take Discounting (Purchase made before December 30th 2008)
If you'd like to cover SQL, Exchange, and other mission critical apps using Double-Take 5.1
If you are using or planning to use virtualization
If you'd like to protect and recover secondary (or tier 2) systems with DoubleTake Livewire. To request a quote use the Request Info tab:
http://www.wservernews.com/081215-DoubleTake

New SNSI Vulnerabilities Update

SNSI uses the latest Mitre Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list of computer incidents. It also contains the latest SANS/FBI top 20 vulnerability list. SNSI also uses the latest CERT, CIAC Microsoft and FedCIRC (Department of Homeland Security) advisories.

New Checks
L1737 Tog-Pegasus security enhancement and logging flaws - SciLinux
L1738 Mozilla Thunderbird multiple vulnerabilities - SciLinux
L1739 SeaMonkey multiple security vulnerabilities - SciLinux
L1742 Net-SNMP getbulk code repeat response vulnerability - SciLinux
L1745 Mozilla Thunderbird multiple vulnerabilities - RHE
L1746 Samba trans request cut and paste errors - FC
L1747 Lynx URL Handler crafted lynxcgi:URL flaw - FC
L1748 Dbus default "al" configuration error - FC
L1749 SquirrelMail - FC
L1750 Syslog-ng chdir calling chroot bypass - FC
L1751 ClamAV stack consumption in libclamav flaw - FC
L1753 Vinagre format string flaw in utils_show_error - FC
L1754 Wordpress self_link Host header flaw - FC
S85 OpenSSL PKCS#11 Engine session corruption vulnerability - Solaris 10
W3500 Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime error - W2K/W2K3/XP
W3501 Visual Basic 6.0 .NET 2002 Runtime error - W2K/W2K3/XP
W3502 Visual Basic 6.0 .NET 2003 Runtime error - W2K/W2K3/XP
W3503 Visual Basic 6.0 FoxPro 8.0 Runtime error - W2K/W2K3/XP/Vista/W2K8
W3504 Visual Basic 6.0 FoxPro 9.0 SP1 Runtime error W2K/W2K3/XP/Vista/W2K8
W3505 Visual Basic 6.0 FoxPro 9.0 SP2 Runtime error W2K/W2K3/XP/Vista/W2K8
W3507 Visual Basic 6.0 Office Project 2003 Runtime error W2K/W2K3/XP/Vista
W3508 Visual Basic 6.0 Office Project 2007 Runtime error - W2K3/XP/Vista
W3510 Office Word 2000 Memory & RTF object flaws - W2K/W2K3/XP
W3511 Office Word 2002 Memory & RTF object flaws - W2K/W2K3/XP
W3512 Office Word 2003 Memory & RTF object flaws - - W2K/W2K3/XP/Vista
W3513 Office Word/Outlook 2007 Memory & RTF object flaws - W2K3/XP/Vista
W3514 Office Word Viewer Memory & RTF object flaws
W3517 Office Excel 2000 Format Parsing vulnerabilities - W2K/W2K3/XP
W3518 Office Excel 2002 Format Parsing vulnerabilities - W2K/W2K3/XP
W3519 Office Excel 2003 Format Parsing vulnerabilities - W2K/W2K3/XP/Vista
W3520 Office Excel 2007 Format Parsing vulnerabilities - W2K/W2K3/XP/Vista
W3521 Office Excel Viewer 2003 Format Parsing flaws - W2K/W2K3/XP/Vista
W3522 Office Excel Viewer 2007 Format Parsing flaws - W2K3/XP/Vista
W3523 Office Compatibility Pack 2007 Format Parsing flaws - W2K3/XP/Vista
W3526 Media Player 6.4 validation errors - W2K/W2K3/XP


Updated Checks
H19 Kernel Vulnerability - HP-UX 11
H45 DCE Vulnerability - HP-UX 11
L1717 Grip cddb lookup excess match return error - FC
W1142 Anti-virus Signature Outdated - McAfee
W1986 Anti-virus Signature Outdated - Symantec
W1999 Anti-virus Signature Outdated - Trend Micro
W2067 Anti-virus Signature Outdated - F-Secure
W2070 Anti-virus Signature Outdated - CA eTrust
W2493 Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Tool Not Updated

Sunbelt Network Security Inspector version 1.6.126.0 was released Dec 10 '08. Sunbelt Software recommends you download the new SNSI version 1.6.126.0, scan, and patch your machines today. To get the latest SNSI version, visit:
http://www.wservernews.com/081215-SNSI

	WServerNews Fave Links

This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff Speed Flying is a new winter sport that involves a combination of paragliding and skiing. After 11 days of climbing the 22,841-foot Aconcagua, François Bon descended the 9,000-foot south face in 4 minutes 50 seconds: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Flying Introducing the all electric eRuf Porsche 911. Top Speed: 140 mph. Range: 190 miles. They speak German but the video speaks for itself! Price: $175,000 http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Porsche-911 Old Videos Reveal Candidate's Dark Past in Software Industry. Truth Slips When "Uber-Pitchman" Thinks Camera Off: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Hopewood Never be late for work again, with this slightly ridiculous office-shaped car, which has a top speed of 90 mph: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Fastest-Office Rick Steves is a well known for writing European travel guidebooks and hosts travel shows on public television. He's compiled a bunch a scams that travelers often are subjected to. Very useful if you plan a trip: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Tourist-Scams This graphs shows the Standard & Poor's yearly percentage drop in a very revealing way - illustrating the severity of the situation: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-SP Top Gear finds out which bus is best for London, by putting them on a racetrack in a demolition derby: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Bus-Racing RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet, not predictable ones using a mathematical formula: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Random A techie wins our PlayStation at a tradeshow, and then look at what he DOES with it...LOL: http://www.wservernews.com/081215-PSP-Feeds A Shanghai lady is angry that her SUV is going to be towed, so she takes matters into her own hands... http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Tow-Truck The World's smartest pig appears on "Animal Planet": http://www.wservernews.com/081215-Smart-Pig

	Product of the Week

Make It Easy To Track User Access To Your Windows File Servers! Monitor your users' every action and get powerful reporting and up-to-the-minute alerts on activity! With File System Auditor from ScriptLogic, you'll be able to audit file access on Windows file servers, generate easy-to-understand compliance reports, and create alerts tied to file system events - all from a centralized management console. Create an audit trail on your file server and know that your access controls are working. File System Auditor protects sensitive information by reporting attempts to access and modify files and folders, with who did it and when. Download a Free Trial of File System Auditor Today! http://www.wservernews.com/081215-FSA

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