Sobig.F Slams the Enterprise

Sobig enjoyed a resurgence as messages generated by a new variant of the mass-mailing worm flooded e-mail servers and user Inboxes on Tuesday. 08/19/2003

70-290: Under New Management

Been through exam 70-218? This exam covers a familiar mix of security, permissions, and backup topics, with a heaping scoop of Windows 2003-specific features thrown in. 08/19/2003

Sync or Swim

Another look at offline folders that comes with a workaround. 08/19/2003

'White Hat' Worm Tries to Remove Blaster

In what appears to be a misguided attempt to do good, someone released a worm that exploits the same DCOM RPC vulnerability that enabled the Blaster worm but that attempts to automatically download the Microsoft patch and remove the Blaster worm if it's present. 08/19/2003

Intel Gains Processor Share

Market research house IDC reports that Intel piled on a few more points of share in the second quarter to its dominant position in the worldwide x86 PC processor market. 08/19/2003

Microsoft Updates Web Resources for Blaster Worm

Stepping up to its role at the center of the Blaster worm epidemic, Microsoft on Thursday updated its main Blaster information page and peppered links to Blaster warnings and information throughout its Web site. 08/14/2003

Microsoft to Change Windows XP Firewall Defaults in Wake of Blaster Worm

Microsoft will change the default firewall settings for new shipments of Windows XP in response to the wide spread of the Blaster worm, according to published reports. 08/14/2003

Exams 70-290, 70-291 Debut Aug. 14

Microsoft to release key core exams for MCSA/MCSE on Windows Server 2003 track on Thursday. 08/13/2003

Exam Score Reports Are Back!

Based on customer feedback, Microsoft will provide graphical reports to examinees. 08/13/2003

Flawed NT 4 Security Patch Rereleased

Microsoft on Wednesday replaced a faulty patch for the file system flaw in Windows NT 4.0 Server that could open the operating system to denial of service attacks. 08/13/2003

Microsoft Project to RTM Aug. 18

Microsoft Project 2003 will be released to manufacturing on Aug. 18, the company said Wednesday in an announcement that included the pricing for the component of the Office 2003 family. 08/13/2003

Exam 70-292 Set for Release August 14

Testing centers will begin accepting registrations Wednesday for 70-292: Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment for an MCSA Certified on Windows 2000. 08/12/2003

File Sync Malady

Windows 2000 continually updates offline file folders by design—Group Policy plays no part. 08/12/2003

Opinion on TCO: Fuzzy Math, Fuzzy Logic?

Things get murky as you start to price out systems costs, and that's why we have analyst firms to tell us the bad news. Things are never as cheap as the vendors tell us. But what are the analysts telling us? 08/11/2003

Opinion: Linux, Windows and the Common Criteria Security Evaluation

The documentation of Linux security took a step forward last week. IBM helped push SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 through the Common Criteria process to earn Evaluation Assurance Level 2+ certification, also known as EAL2+. 08/11/2003

Blaster Worm Exploits RPC DCOM Vulnerability

The first worm, which exploits the juicy RPC DCOM vulnerability in Windows that Microsoft released a patch for last month, went into the wild on Monday, crashing vulnerable computers, slowing down local subnets and sending scanning traffic on port 135 through the roof. 08/11/2003

The Big Trend -- Unix, Linux and Windows Will Fight it Out for Years

Many Linux purists would like to see Linux eat into Microsoft's market share. Many Microsoft employees would prefer to see Windows work its way into the highest reaches of Unix deployments. Neither side is getting its way. 08/11/2003

The Long Run: Does Windows or Linux Cost More?

While no one argues with the fact that the initial price of Linux is far lower than Windows server software, the comparison is trickier when looking at long-term costs over a three to five-year period. 08/11/2003

High-end Microsoft Stack Cheaper Than TPC Comparison Suggests

The price difference between extremely high-end Windows-based systems and extremely high-end Unix-based systems isn't as close as a recent Transaction Processing Performance Council TPC-C benchmark implies. 08/07/2003

Microsoft Posts Stand-Alone Active Directory

Microsoft has posted the bits for its stand-alone Active Directory, an out-of-band component of Windows Server 2003 that greatly expands the flexibility of Microsoft's directory services. 08/07/2003

Update: Stratus Touts Uptime Achievement

Stratus Technologies, maker of fault-tolerant Windows 2000 servers, is claiming its internal monitoring of more than 1,200 live customer units approached six nines of availability over the last six months. 08/07/2003

Licensing Change for Office 2003

Software Assurance customers got another bone when Microsoft disclosed an unexpected differentiation in the way it will distribute new features in Office 2003. 08/06/2003

Through the Looking Glass: Raises and How to Get One

Data not published within this year's salary survey points to modest raises expected in the coming year and plans for new jobs. 08/06/2003

Apache Hits Record Web Server Share

The open-source Apache Web server hit a record high in market share in August, running away to 63.72 percent of all domains, according to Netcraft's latest monthly survey. 08/06/2003

EU Turns Up the Heat on Microsoft

Citing new evidence, European regulators on Wednesday accused Microsoft of "ongoing" abuse of its "overwhelmingly dominant position from the PC" to leverage its position in low-end servers and multi-media software. The European Commission is giving Microsoft a last chance to defend itself in a process that will wrap up in "months not years." 08/06/2003

Screen Test

Some Group Policy tool tricks for implementing an enterprise-wide screen saver. 08/05/2003

Exam Words to Memorize: Hot Area, Active Screen...

New exams slated for release this year to feature many new testing innovations and improved security. 08/05/2003

Mimail Worm Appears to Come from User's Own Administrator

Anti-virus vendors released a flurry of warnings over the weekend about a new e-mail worm called Mimail that is spreading in the wild. Symantec rated the virus as a 3 on its threat scale, a medium ranking that puts Mimail below only Bugbear on its current list of top virus threats. 08/04/2003

Microsoft.com Outage Not the Start of Widespread RPC Exploits

Microsoft hastened to reassure the security and user community that a denial-of-service attack that took down the Microsoft.com Web site for an hour and forty minutes on Friday was not evidence of the beginning of widespread attacks based on a recent flaw in Windows. 08/04/2003

CERT: Denial-of-Service Still Possible on W2K Systems with RPC Patch

The CERT Coordination Center put out a warning that Windows 2000 systems remain vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack even after applying the critical and high-profile RPC patch Microsoft issued in mid-July. 08/04/2003

License, Please...

If you were scared off by Microsoft’s licensing program announcements last year, it may be time to take another look. 08/01/2003

What’s Your Network Doing?

Stay alert with MKS AlertCentre 2.0. 08/01/2003

Increased database performance

DataDirect''s Connect for .NET allows you to programmatically access the database entirely within the .NET Framework, to simplify database access and boost performance. 08/01/2003

A Different Take

Many people, many stories. 08/01/2003

Security By Aggravation

How much can you handle to get secure? 08/01/2003

News Analysis: Longhorn Server Sidesteps the Question

The next version of Windows server has a code name now, but not much else. Microsoft sort of ended months of speculation at its financial analysts meeting in July by declaring that the code-name for the next version of the Windows Server will be "Longhorn" instead of the other major candidate, "Blackcomb." But Microsoft still hasn't finalized crucial decisions on the underlying issue that made the whole debate important. 08/01/2003

Managing for Security

For many reasons, enterprise application security is an inefficient and expensive model. Obviously there''s no such thing as a completely secure application, but enterprises must target an acceptable level of risk. 08/01/2003

Bridging the Gap

Turn Outlook for Web Access into an offline mail reader. 08/01/2003

A Fast Intro to .NET

Sorting out the story from Redmond 08/01/2003

Who’s Got a Hand in Your Policy?

Policy Auditing with FullArmor’s Fazam Auditing 1.0. 08/01/2003

Pricing Politics; Saying Goodbye

A Patchwork Quilt

Patch management is no longer a luxury to have a secure network—it’s a necessity. We test six solutions to the problem of knowing whether or not your servers and desktops are up to date. 08/01/2003

Backup Gets Better

A familiar tool gets a facelift and new functions. 08/01/2003

Turbocharge Terminal Services

Here are some tips for keeping disk consuption to a minimum and improving server performance. 08/01/2003

Speaking the Same Language

This month, Chris takes you through a handy script that discovers and enumerates what networking protocols are installed on a host. 08/01/2003

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

Windows Server 2003 has a number of differences from Windows 2000 in how it handles DNS queries. They can speed up domain construction and troubleshooting, helping you squeeze more power out of your network. 08/01/2003

Architecting Security for Web Services

Ponder the security challenges posed by Web services, how to address them with security architecture, and what security architecture can offer going forward when XML traverses firewalls. 08/01/2003

That First Step Is Tricky

You're responsible for soup-to-nuts implementation of a new system. Before you start, here are a few suggestions to make the project run smoothly. 08/01/2003

Keep Patches up to Date

Ecora Patch Manager 2.0 enables you to keep critical patches for Microsoft products up to date, now and into the future. 08/01/2003

Windows Services à la Carte

Windows Server 2003 installs fewer services by default, and installs others in a disabled state. Here’s a guide to what they do, and whether you might need them or not. 08/01/2003