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Vol. 15, #10 - Mar 5, 2010 - Issue #768 Redmond's "Hacker Tax" Is Terrible Idea This issue of WServerNews is sponsored by Editor's Corner Redmond's "Hacker Tax" Is Terrible Idea The Tech Herald - Sunbelt Improves Vipre Product Line Survey: Video Games In The Workplace Quote Of The Week Admin Toolbox Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Webinars & Seminars Sunbelt Exchange Archiver Product Demonstration - 3/9 Introducing VIPRE Enterprise Premium, Version 4.0 - 3/16 VIPRE Enterprise Premium Product Demonstration - 3/23 Securing your Exchange Server with VIPRE Email Security - 3/30 Upcoming Windows OS Internals Classes Tech Briefing 8 Bugs At Coming Patch Tuesday 10 Reasons Why Chrome Will Overtake Internet Explorer Cracking Passwords In Windows 7 Try Providing Tech Support For New 'Skinput' Microsoft Has Published the Outlook PST Specification Windows Server News Auditing The Server Security Log 5 Things VMware Must Do To Fend Off Microsoft Microsoft Bets On The Cloud Third Party News VIPRE Email Security Gets Second VBSpam Award VIPRE Enterprise User Comment WServerNews Fave Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. Need To Find Out Who Added "Joe" To The Domain Admins Group? WServerNews - Product of the Week Need To Find Out Who Added "Joe" To The Domain Admins Group? Need to find out who added "Joe" to the Domain Admins Group? Auditing the changes in Active Directory can be one of the most important steps in ensuring the security and integrity of your network. Active Administrator monitors the changes in Active Directory, producing a live view of changes as they occur, as well as custom filtered views of changes. Active Administrator's auditing agents can collect "before" and "after" values for all attribute changes on AD objects so you can track all the key information - who made the change, when, where, and what did they change. Download a free trial version of Active Administrator today! http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Active-Administrator Editor's Corner Redmond's "Hacker Tax" Is Terrible Idea This week at RSA, Scott Charney, Microsoft's VP for its Trustworthy Computing group, said that while there are plenty of ways to combat malware, scrub infected PCs and take down botnets, no one wanted to foot the bill. So he proposed a Net Tax so we can shut down hackers. "You could say it's a public safety issue and do it with general taxation," Charney said. I'm usually pretty rational and balanced, but OMG, to quote Bill Gates, "That's the stupidest idea I have heard all day". Andrew Storms at nCircle commented: "The problem is that one, you have to find a big, smart and trustworthy organization to handle this. And most people will agree that's not the government, and that's not Microsoft." So Scott, you want to get the government involved and raise a tax for this? I totally agree with John Pescatore, Gartner's security analyst. He said "A business can now select what it thinks is the best anti-malware solution, but that choice would presumably vanish if funding for battling the bad guys went national". Pescatore contended: "A general tax would reduce the services to the lowest common denominator". Not to mention that a valuable and viable security ecosystem would be destroyed. Microsoft should have a look at what they can do themselves before proposing to have other people pay for the gaping security holes they have left open. Our friends at ESET are very right to point out that almost 30% of in-the-wild malware uses AutoRun as an infection vector. And guess what? Redmond did not mandate their recent AutoRun updates for XP and Vista, only for Windows 7. So Mr. Charney, before you propose a tax for bot clean up, why don't you clean up you own house first? The Tech Herald - Sunbelt Improves Vipre Product Line RSA Conference 2010 - Sunbelt Software has announced improvements to their VIPRE Enterprise line, and the inclusion of a new VIPRE product that offers an internal two-way firewall. The new move places Sunbelt in direct competition with other Enterprise players including Symantec and McAfee. We sat down to talk with Sunbelt's CEO, Alex Eckelberry, recently, who gave us a tour of the new features and the VIPRE line itself. If there is anything to be said, Eckelberry is proud of his company. Millions have been invested into its development and the backend stack that powers the infrastructure Sunbelt operates from. The rest of the story at the Tech Herald website: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-VIPRE-Product-Line Survey: Video Games In The Workplace Are there video game consoles in your workplace? If so, we want to hear from you! Would you mind completing this short survey? It's 8 short multiple-choice questions - should take less than one minute: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Survey Quote Of The Week "If there is radience in the soul it will abound in the family. If there is radience in the family it will be abundant in the community. If there is radience in the community it will grow in the nation. If there is radience in the nation the universe will flourish." -- Lao Tse "I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior." -- Hippolyte Taine 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/100308-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/100308-WXPNews PPS: And now we have our new Win7News! You can subscribe here, and tell your friends: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Win7News Hope you enjoy this issue of WServerNews! Warm regards, Stu Sjouwerman  |   Email me: [email protected] NEW! VIPRE Enterprise Premium 4.0 The new Premium edition combines VIPRE's antivirus and antispyware protection, and adds advanced firewall protection and many other powerful features into a single low-overhead agent. Core features include: Desktop antivirus and antispyware, Bi-directional desktop firewall, Malicious URL filtering, IDS and HIPS. Learn more about the new features, watch new the 3-minute video: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-VIPRE-Enterprise-Premium Admin Toolbox Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Need to find out who added "Joe" to the Domain Admins Group? Active Administrator from ScriptLogic can tell you in seconds. Download a free trial today! http://www.wservernews.com/100308-ActiveAdministrator Finally. All-in-one endpoint malware protection...that's not a resource hog! VIPRE Enterprise Premium: high-performance antivirus, antispyware, AND firewall: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-VIPRE-Enterprise Webinars & Seminars Sunbelt Exchange Archiver Product Demonstration - 3/9 Exchange performance is suffering. Your users complain about email storage and don't want any quotas. Your CEO requires legal compliance. Want a high-end, feature-rich, admin-friendly product that solves all these issues at a very affordable price? Then don't miss this Sunbelt Exchange Archiver demonstration. When: Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 2:00 PM (EST) Please register here: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-SEA Introducing VIPRE Enterprise Premium, Version 4.0 - 3/16 Be the first to see Sunbelt's new VIPRE Enterprise Premium Version 4.0 - powerful, high-performance endpoint malware protection. The new premium version combines antivirus, antispyware, and now client firewall and malicious website filtering technologies, into a single agent to protect against the ever-changing wave of malware in the most comprehensive, highly efficient manner. Join us to hear how our approach to malware protection is different. We translated our years of experience in detecting and remediating sophisticated malware into the next-generation endpoint protection technology, VIPRE - without building on older generation AV engines or other sourced technology components. VIPRE is fast, efficient technology in a single, powerful threat engine with low impact on system resources. Take a deep dive into new features including scalable multi-site tiering and role-based access control. Plus, learn why VIPRE delivers all the necessary security functionality you need and nothing you don't. When: Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 2:00 PM (EDT) Please register here: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-VIPRE-Demo VIPRE Enterprise Premium Product Demonstration - 3/23 Join us for a look at Sunbelt's new VIPRE Enterprise Premium Version 4.0, powerful, high-performance endpoint malware protection. Be among the first to see the new version, which combines antivirus, antispyware and now firewall into a single agent. Plus take a deep dive into other new features including scalable multi-site tiering and role-based access control. When: Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 11:00 AM (EDT) Please register here: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-VIPRE-Demo-3-23 Securing your Exchange Server with VIPRE Email Security - 3/30 Securing your Exchange Server is key to protecting your enterprise environment from spam, viruses, phishing, and other messaging threats. In this webinar, learn how the new version of VIPRE Email Security for Exchange (formerly Ninja Email Security) can help protect your network and cut your Exchange admin time in half with this powerful, policy-based email security product. When: Tuesday, March 30, 2010, 2:00 PM (EDT) Please register here: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-VIPRE-Email-Security Upcoming Windows OS Internals Classes David Solomon Expert Seminars 2010 class schedule is posted. They have three deliveries of their 5-day Windows OS internals class planned: London: April 12-16, New York City: May 3-7, and San Francisco: November 8-12. They also have another 2 day webinar (virtual class) on April 26 & 28. To register or for more details, visit http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Course-Registration Tech Briefing 8 Bugs At Coming Patch Tuesday Redmond announced it will ship two security updates on Tuesday to patch eight vulnerabilities in Windows and Office. In its monthly heads up, Microsoft spelled out next week's two-update Patch Tuesday, a far cry from February's massive roll-out of 13 security bulletins that fixed 26 flaws. Last month was more OS related, this month they're patching apps, as they usually do. Here is the March 2010 notification: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Security-Bulletin 10 Reasons Why Chrome Will Overtake Internet Explorer EWeek came out with: "Internet Explorer and now Firefox have lost some market share as Google's Chrome browser has gained more users. Whether or not this trend will continue is anyone's guess, but one thing is certain: If Internet Explorer loses its position of dominance, it will be due to the growth of Google's Chrome browser. A recent report from Web analytics firm NetApplications has found that Mozilla's Firefox browser has once again lost ground in the browser space. Firefox's loss of 0.2 percent marks the third straight month where the venerable browser has lost share at the hands of Google's Chrome browser, which enjoyed a 0.4 percent growth on the month. More: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Chrome Cracking Passwords In Windows 7 Cracking passwords with Windows 7 is no different or more difficult than it was with Windows XP. As a result, a lost or stolen Windows 7 laptop is no more secure than a lost or stolen Windows 2000-based system. All anyone has to do is run the Ophcrack tool to recover many, if not all, passwords. (Just make sure you have a good set of NTLM hash tables, like the ones at Free Rainbow Tables.) If Ophcrack doesn't work -- or you want to go a different route -- then try Elcomsoft System Recovery, which can crack basic passwords, reset the local administrator account and more. More at: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Cracking-Passwords Try Providing Tech Support For New 'Skinput' Ever find yourself wishing that you could control your smart phone or PDA without even using the small screen? If you don't mind a little bit of skin contact, your wish has been granted. A collaboration between Microsoft and Carnegie Melon University has produced a new technology dangerously close to the lore of sci-fi. This partnership has resulted in a technology that enables users of laptops, smart phones and PDAs to use points on their own bodies to manipulate controls previously governed by a mouse and keyboard. This bona fide bio-man creation is cleverly called "Skinput," described by Microsoft as "a technology that appropriates the human body for acoustic transmission, allowing the skin to be used as an input system," on its Web site. Hence, Skinput. http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Skinput Microsoft Has Published the Outlook PST Specification Microsoft has published the Outlook PST file format specification in order to "facilitate interoperability and enable customers and vendors to access the data in .pst files on a variety of platforms" as promised in October last year. Redmond has been opening up for interoperability reasons across different platforms for a while, with one important move being the implementation of OASIS Open Document Format (ODF) version 1.1 in Office 2007 SP2 released in 2009. That implementation included Word, Excel and PowerPoint and it was documented as Microsoft Office File Formats. More at: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-PST-Specification Windows Server News Auditing The Server Security Log The Windows security log allows you to audit any change to any object in Active Directory. This area of audit policy is very granular so you can fine tune exactly what gets audited and what doesn't. Why audit AD? Hah! That's a good joke. AD is the center of the universe when it comes to corporate information security. You need to know who changed what and when for compliance and security. Windows 2003 doesn't give you before and after values but Windows 2008 does. This site has all the security log events and what they mean. Compare event 566 to 5136 at: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Security-Log 5 Things VMware Must Do To Fend Off Microsoft With 170,000 customers, including every member of the Fortune 100, you might think VMware's toughest task is stocking enough paper to print up new customer contracts. But the industry's biggest x86 virtualization vendor is facing a strong challenge from Microsoft, which is enticing IT executives with Hyper-V, an alternative that may not be quite as sophisticated as VMware but is less expensive. 2010 will be a crucial year for both VMware and Microsoft in the virtualization race. Here is a list of five things VMware and its CEO -- former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz -- have to do to stay ahead of their biggest rival. Story at InfoWorld: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-VMware Microsoft Bets On The Cloud Client Server News reported that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a speech about the cloud Thursday that was webcast. "We are betting our company on" it, he said. Apparently Microsoft has shifted 70% of its work to the cloud. Should hit 90% a year from now. He also observed that Google is better at search than Yahoo, a lot better. The desktop won't disappear soon the way Google claims but it has to be more than just a gateway to the Internet to be valuable, he said. You have to wonder what they are planning with Windows Server in this scenario. Third Party News VIPRE Email Security Gets Second VBSpam Award VIPRE Email Security has been awarded a second VBSpam award in the latest round of comparative anti-spam testing, with a final score of 96.70%. Like many products in this test, Sunbelt's VIPRE combines a slightly lower spam catch rate with a slightly lower false positive rate. The latter in particular still leaves some room for improvement, but it should also be noted that the product had a consistently high spam catch rate, even during periods when most other products saw their performance temporarily drop. This suggests that new spam campaigns are no problem for VIPRE. VIPRE Enterprise User Comment Dan Margheim said at the Spiceworks Antivirus User Forum: "Sunbelt VIPRE Enterprise is a good, affordable, workable solution that offers reports and some sense of what is happening. Do I sound like a disciple? Probably but consider: They are USA home grown Friendly, supportive and responsive They answer the phone in a language I can understand They are not the 'Bloatware' certain other in the industry have become They just released VIPRE Premium 4 which included their rework of the excellent Kerio Firewall which Sunbelt Software now owns. They are probably the most affordable Enterprise solution available. If anyone doesn't at least consider investigating Sunbelt Software, they aren't doing what they are being paid to do - - IT Support." Save yourself some time and find out what's new. Watch the 3-minute video: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-VIPRE-Enterprise-Premium WServerNews Fave Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. An epic four-minute-long Rube Goldberg machine in action, with nearly any imaginable object incorporated into a daisy chain of elegant chaos. The band performs the song while wearing paint-splattered jumpsuits, the reason for which is revealed at the end: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Rube-Goldberg This is simply the best time line I have see of the International Space Station: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Space-Station More space. In all the messiness of life's day-to-day, one tends to forget the majesty that is the universe in a grand scale. Watch it full screen in HD: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Milky-Way Do you enjoy the sound of a roaring V8 engine? Check out this high tech "plug-in". Sounds like FUN!: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-SoundRacer A snowboarder gets caught into an avalanche and survives. His helmet camera recorded it all: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Avalanche In this demonstration a brave Englishman touches a 400,000 volt terminal: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Man-vs-Volts The Future of Apple: Neither the iBoard nor the iMat, scheduled for 2014 will have Flash support. Multitasking will not be supported either. Humor: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Apple Master Magician 'Cardini' performs the "intoxicated English gentleman" routine that made him famous. The first part his hands are in gloves!: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Cardini Truck successfully crosses a river in Russia. Wait until you see this: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Truck A New Zealand inventor has created a flying machine, a hovercraft that acts like a boat until it hits 45 mph and then takes to the skies. I want one.: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Hovercraft This Windows 7 Theme pack makes your PC look like a Commodore 64! LOL http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Commodore64 A French shipbuilding ship company joined with one in Monaco to build this yacht. It's enormous, 58 meters long by 38 meters wide, and they released these pictures. I'd take a cruise on something like this!: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-The-Why AT&T Roars Back in PCWorld's Second 3G Wireless Performance Test in PCWorld, so stick with your AT&T card until WiMax arrives. LOL: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Wireless-Performance Brazilian singer Denise Reis can imitate the trumpet using only her lips and voice: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Voice-Trumpet The 5 all-time best baby laughs: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Baby-Laughs Finally, a wristwatch that does the one thing we really want watches to do: It stops time. Well, the Tao Ma 'Play & Stop' Watch pretends to stop time -- with a pause button. Hat Tip to Mike Elgan: http://www.wservernews.com/100308-Watch Need To Find Out Who Added "Joe" To The Domain Admins Group? Auditing the changes in Active Directory can be one of the most important steps in ensuring the security and integrity of your network. Active Administrator monitors the changes in Active Directory, producing a live view of changes as they occur, as well as custom filtered views of changes. Active Administrator's auditing agents can collect "before" and "after" values for all attribute changes on AD objects so you can track all the key information - who made the change, when, where, and what did they change. Download a free trial version of Active Administrator today! http://www.wservernews.com/100308-POTW-Active-Administrator WServerNews - Product of the Week Need To Find Out Who Added "Joe" To The Domain Admins Group? Auditing the changes in Active Directory can be one of the most important steps in ensuring the security and integrity of your network. Active Administrator monitors the changes in Active Directory, producing a live view of changes as they occur, as well as custom filtered views of changes. Active Administrator's auditing agents can collect "before" and "after" values for all attribute changes on AD objects so you can track all the key information - who made the change, when, where, and what did they change. Download a free trial version of Active Administrator today! http://www.wservernews.com/100308-POTW-Active-Administrator

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