Vol. 14, #19 - Apr 27, 2009 - Issue #724 Cisco CEO: "Cloud Computing A 'Security Nightmare'" Editors Corner Cisco CEO: "Cloud Computing A 'Security Nightmare'" VIPRE Makes It In The 10 Most Interesting Products' at RSA 2009 Redmond Reports On Quarter; Server & Tools 7% Up, Rest Down Quotes Of The Week Webinars and Seminars Windows Internals with Sysinternals - 2 day webinar - June 1&3, 2009 Ninja Email Security Product Demonstration VIPRE Enterprise Product Demonstration Survey: Webinar Audio Preferences Admin Toolbox Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Tech Briefing One Bot-Infected PC = 600,000 Spam Messages A Day Report: Hackers Break Into Pentagon's Fighter Jet Project Three Reasons To Virtualize Your Desktops In 2009 Guide: Windows Security Tools For The Busy Desktop Administrator New Features In Microsoft's SCVMM R2 Improve Hyper-V Management Windows Server News Which Driver Crashed My Server? Microsoft Leaks Windows 7 RC Delivery Date WServer Third Party News Shavlik To Bundle Anti-Malware Into Patch System Use Third-Party Tools And Resources To Streamline Help Desk Processes WServerNews Fave Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. WServerNews - Product of the Week Be Ready For Lawsuits Now With SEA Be Ready For Lawsuits Now With SEA Sunbelt Exchange Archiver (SEA) makes your organization ready for lawsuits, either for suing some other entity, or being sued yourself. At that time, your attorneys are going to ask you for an e-discovery and you will be forced to go through ALL sent and received email and query it for specific things. If you are not ready for this, prepare for weeks of agony, no weekends and 14-hour days to find all PST files and painstakingly search through all of them. But having SEA implemented, you will be ready for legal action, and your CEO and Legal Counsel will be highly appreciative. Get a quote now: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-SEA Editors Corner Cisco CEO: "Cloud Computing A 'Security Nightmare'" During a keynote address at RSA this week, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco said that the industry's move to sell pay-as-you-go computing cycles available as a service on the Internet was also "a security nightmare." He further stated that cloud computing was inevitable, but that it would shake up the way that networks are secured. "You'll have no idea what's in the corporate data center," he said. "That is exciting to me as a network player. Boy, am I going to sell a lot of stuff to tie that together." However, he added, "It is a security nightmare and it can't be handled in traditional ways." He's right. There are two major downsides to this type of architecture. First is security and you can already imagine the problems there. The other problem is high-availability. Look at what happened in Northern California, April 9th this year. Unidentified attackers climbed down four manholes serving the city of Morgan Hill and cut eight fiber cables in what appears to have been an organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, though startling, have gone almost un-reported. Commerce was disrupted in a 100-mile swath around the community, from San Jose to Gilroy and Monterey. Cash was king for the day as ATMs and credit card systems were down, and many found they didn't have sufficient cash on hand. Services employees dependent on communication were sent home. The many businesses providing just-in-time operations to agriculture could not communicate. In technical terms, the area was partitioned from the surrounding Internet. Not good. The only way they could keep things going was with two-way radios and hams. What to do? Local infrastructure is the key. The services that you depend on, all critical web applications and email, should be based at your site. They need to be able to operate without access to databases elsewhere, and to resynchronize with the rest of your operation when the network comes back up. This takes professional IT engineering to implement, and will cost more to manage, but won't leave you sitting on your hands in an emergency. Grateful acknowledgments and thanks to software developer Bruce Perens who wrote up the details of this story on this website. Recommended read: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Cyber-Attack VIPRE Makes It In The 10 Most Interesting Products' at RSA 2009 More than 450 exhibitors showed their stuff at this year's RSA Conference in San Francisco. eWEEK Labs' Cameron Sturdevant has been scouring the expo floor to find the most compelling products for the enterprise. This year, virtualization security tools were an area of focus, but old standbys-still very much needed in our Windows XP/physical server world-are garnering attention. Read on for Cameron's picks for the 10 most interesting products at the show Slideshow - it includes a slide of VIPRE Enterprise: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Products-at-RSA Redmond Reports On Quarter; Server & Tools 7% Up, Rest Down Microsoft posted a 32% drop in profit and the first decline in quarterly revenue in its 23-year history as a public company, as the recession took its toll. MS execs blamed the 6% drop on a general pullback in spending on PCs by both consumers and businesses. PC shipments fell by 6.5% in the first three months of the year, according to Gartner Inc. Things could have been much worse, so MS shares rose 3.7% to $19.61 in after-hours trading. Generally the stock analysts are upbeat about Microsoft as they see that Redmond is able to turn on a dime and cut costs deep and hard. If you are well versed in Microsoft's volume licensing program, you are in a great position to negotiate the cost of software. "Resellers are saying there has never been a better time to negotiate with Microsoft," says Paul DeGroot, an analyst with independent analyst firm Directions on Microsoft. "It is a buyer's market, and it is a time when customers have had unusual bargaining power with Microsoft." DeGroot recently wrote a report called, "Microsoft Volume Licensing Programs." The report helps you understand what volume licenses you need to buy to save money on software, reduce software management costs, and enforce corporate standards: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Volume-Licensing Quotes Of The Week "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money" -- Alexis de Tocqueville "Freedom is a possession of inestimable value." -- Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC) 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/090427-Subscribe PS: Did you know this newsletter has a sister publication for XP users called WXPnews? You can subscribe here, and tell your friends: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-WXPNews PPS: And of course we also have our weekly VistaNews. You can subscribe here, and tell your friends: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-VistaNews 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: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-VIPRE-Enterprise Webinars and Seminars Windows Internals with Sysinternals - 2 day webinar - June 1&3, 2009 Explore the internals of key Windows kernel components and mechanisms with the Sysinternals tools in this 2 day webinar. Topics include kernel architecture, memory management, thread scheduling, interrupt processing, time accounting, and crash dump analysis. This knowledge will help you help you troubleshoot difficult system problems as well as understand the true meaning behind key system performance counters. To register, click here http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Sysinternals-Webinar Ninja Email Security Product Demonstration Tuesday, May 5, 2009, 2:00pm - 2:30pm EDT Securing your Exchange Server is key to protecting your enterprise environment from spam, viruses, and other malware. Ninja Email Security is an 'all-in-one' integrated and policy-based email security solution that helps you to fight spam, viruses, trojans, phishing and other email security threats with a series of 'best-of-breed' plug-ins. Register here: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Ninja-Demo VIPRE Enterprise Product Demonstration Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 2:00pm - 2:30pm EDT VIPRE Enterprise is designed to optimize overall performance by melding antivirus and antispyware together into one, single, powerful engine. This combination of technologies gives you high-performance software that doesn't slow down users' workstations, is low on system resources, and makes it easy for you to protect your network. Register here: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-VIPRE-Demo Survey: Webinar Audio Preferences We'd like to understand your preferences around audio for our webinars. We invite you to take this short, 3-question survey and share your opinions with us - it should take less than a minute. Thank you in advance for your participation. http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Survey Admin Toolbox Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without File System Tampered With? Find out who did it! ScriptLogic's File System Auditor: Test it out today! http://www.wservernews.com/090427-File-System-Auditor This new Internet access solution called WalkingHotSpot turns your Windows Mobile device into your own anytime, anywhere "walking" Wi-Fi hotspot: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-WHS Need to get 'email retention' compliant? Get ready for legal action? Want to get rid of these endless PST file headaches? Check out Sunbelt Exchange Archiver: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Exchange-Archiver Tech Briefing One Bot-Infected PC = 600,000 Spam Messages A Day ComputerWorld reported that some bot-infected PCs can crank out as many as 25,000 spam messages per hour. Orange, Calif.-based Sunbelt partner Marshal8e6 deliberately infected machines in the lab of its research arm, TRACElabs, with the malware responsible for the world's nine biggest spam botnets, then observed the PCs' behavior, including each bot's top-end spam capacity. "One of the our objectives over the past few years has been to emphasize the dominant role that a handful of key botnets play in the spam we see today," said Phil Hay, a senior threat analyst at TRACElabs, in an e-mail. More: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Bot-Infection Report: Hackers Break Into Pentagon's Fighter Jet Project Hackers broke into U.S. Department of Defense computers and downloaded terabytes of data containing design information about the Joint Strike Fighter, a $300 billion stealth fighter currently under development, according to The Wall Street Journal. The stolen files all relate to the design of the Joint Strike Fighter and its electronic systems, the Journal reported, saying they could be used to help defend against the jet. However, the most sensitive files were not compromised because they are stored on computers that are not connected to the Internet, the report said. More at ComputerWorld: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Hackers Three Reasons To Virtualize Your Desktops In 2009 Vendors who sell desktop virtualization would like you to think that everyone should virtualize all of their desktops as soon as possible. They're so eager to sell that it's easy to get lost in the hype of all the advantages they throw at you. In many cases, these lists may be too generic or abstract for you to go to your boss to get approval to start doing desktop virtualization today. In this tip, desktop virtualization expert, Brian Madden cuts out the vendor spin and explains three "real" reasons to examine desktop virtualization in 2009: (Registration Required) http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Virtualize-Desktop Guide: Windows Security Tools For The Busy Desktop Administrator Looking for Windows security tools, but don't have time to do the research? This fast guide has done the work for you. Get expert insight into the top Windows security must have tools, learn the pros and cons of Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer, and find out why every Windows shop should use the Sysinternals toolkit: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Security-Tools New Features In Microsoft's SCVMM R2 Improve Hyper-V Management While Microsoft's Hyper-V has proven its ability to fulfill enterprise-level needs, Hyper-V version 1.0 featured significant shortcomings, such as its management toolsets and a Hyper-V Manager console that is rough around the edges. Luckily, Microsoft designed System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) to overcome these obstacles. In this tip, learn the upgrade's new features and their improvements to Hyper-V management, including logical unit number (LUN) management and Live Migration support. http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Hyper-V-Management Windows Server News Which Driver Crashed My Server? When a server crashes, sometimes it's easier to repair the issue, rather than identify the cause of the problem. However, locating the source of the crash can help you create a more efficient solution strategy and better understand how to prevent future problems. This tutorial provides an outline for how to achieve this. http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Server-Outages Microsoft Leaks Windows 7 RC Delivery Date It's coming May 5 for partners, before that for MSDN, TechNet subscribers. That is faster than expected. It also might change your roll-out plans. And here are the results of the SunPoll asking for your deployment strategy with over 1,500 votes, sorted descending: Not planned yet / don't know - 23% Yup, we'll roll it out right away - 22% 6 to 12 months after release - 22% 12 to 24 months after release - 14% Nope, not before the end of 2009 - 11% 24 to 36 months after release - 7% ComputerWorld has a whole article about Redmond leaking data about Win7: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Win7-RC WServer Third Party News Shavlik To Bundle Anti-Malware Into Patch System Software patch company Shavlik Technologies is to embed anti-virus and anti-spyware code produced by Windows security software house Sunbelt Software into an upgraded version of its flagship patch management system. Included with NetChk Protect 7, the anti-malware software has been integrated in a way that makes it particularly light on system resources. Nancee Melby of Shavlik told us, "The security system folds right into the Shavlik agent. It is designed to be lightening fast and robust, and sits in the background on a very small footprint so as not to consume systems resources." Sunbelt Software does not have a great level of penetration in the enterprise market, and Melby said the Sunbelt system had been chosen over other options because it ranks very highly in independent tests. The core anti-virus detection engine that drives its Vipre enterprise system was reworked earlier this year. That new engine has some important enhancements for the detection of both existing malware and new, unknown threat/variants, using pattern analysis on files as well as classic signature detection and heuristics. Melby said that no charge would be made to existing users for the additional security software integrated into Version 7, and that it could conceivably lead to cost-savings among the Shavlik customer base of the $10 to $12 per node that is normally charged for a combined anti-virus and anti-spyware license. Mark Shavlik, CEO of Shavlik said, "Laptops, remote and often disconnected, remain unprotected due to the bandwidth requirements of their current anti-virus". The view is that businesses do not want to sacrifice business productivity in order to update those systems as often as they should. Shavlik operates in the PC lifecycle and endpoint security market segments where it competes largely against Microsoft, but also runs into rivals such as PatchLink, BigFix, LANdesk and Symantec's Altiris line of products. It sells a blend of agent-based and agentless technologies to distribute software and protect servers and endpoints; http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Antimalware-Patch-System Use Third-Party Tools And Resources To Streamline Help Desk Processes The only way for a help desk environment to be truly effective is for the department to make the best possible use of available resources. This means using some third-party applications to streamline help desk processes. However, it is crucial to remember to always perform due diligence when considering purchasing an application, rather than just buying it because an expert likes its features. This article discusses strategies and third-party tools that can help improve the help desk process: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Streamline-Help-Desk WServerNews Fave Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. An orchestra of computer gadgets playing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, with an HP ScanJet 3C for the vocals, the Atari 800XL as the organ, TI-99/4a plays lead guitar and the 8 Inch Floppy Disk on the bass. GOTTA SEE: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Gadgets Like up-close, tabletop magic with cigarettes, coins, handkerchiefs and rope? This guy is absolutely amazing, and a classic performance. http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Conjuring-Slydini Here's a good use of an iPhone ;-) Knight's Armament BulletFlight is a military-grade ballistic computer that provides quick solutions in the field. Scroll down the page to see how they mounted it: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Ballistic-Computer Micheal Espinola on Sunbelt's NTSYSADMIN list posted this: "Jumping on the coattails of (I'm guessing) Watchmen, Cisco has come up with an odd choice of ad campaign:" And I agree. Watch this mix between an ad, comic and website: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Realm Probably the best shots of trial bike riding ever seen - Danny MacAskill is pushing the envelope of what is possible on a trial bike: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Danny-MacAskill Windows PC takes a trip into the future to see how Windows works then. But wait - "Windows PC" has the technology to go into the future? ... I guess I am going to get a PC ;-) http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Time-Traveler Testing a Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon... for real: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Javelin-Testing 12-year-old Shaheen Jafargholi wowed the "Britain's Got Talent 2009" audience and judges with the Jackson Five ballad "Who's Loving You": http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Talent AMD showcases the Phenom II X4 overclocked to 7GHz. Wow: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Phenom-II-X4 Amazing 10 year old singer Zara Larsson gives an incredible performance of "The greatest love of all" by Whitney Houston and ends up winning the "Sweden's Got Talent" contest. Dang. This kid knows how to sing, I predict in 10 years time you will see her on stage here in the U.S. http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Sweden-got-Talent A flying instructor shows off indoor skydiving. This takes incredible skill and practice: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Indoor-Skydiving WServerNews - Product of the Week Be Ready For Lawsuits Now With SEA Sunbelt Exchange Archiver (SEA) makes your organization ready for lawsuits, either for suing some other entity, or being sued yourself. At that time, your attorneys are going to ask you for an e-discovery and you will be forced to go through ALL sent and received email and query it for specific things. If you are not ready for this, prepare for weeks of agony, no weekends and 14-hour days to find all PST files and painstakingly search through all of them. But having SEA implemented, you will be ready for legal action, and your CEO and Legal Counsel will be highly appreciative. Get a quote now: http://www.wservernews.com/090427-Sunbelt-Exchange-Archiver

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