Ramblings of a Sysadmin

Random stories about life, problems and technology all within the world of IT.

Ramblings of a Sysadmin
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Security

Get ready for a bumper patch Tuesday

With no less than 12 security updates coming out of Microsoft later on today and Vista SP1 slated for February 15 there will be a lot of update servers groaning under the weight

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Security

Call for Eicar V2

Many years ago it was recognised that there existed a need to test AV software without throwing live viruses around and so the EICAR test file was developed as a safe way of

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Security

First Patch Tuesday of 2008

The first patch Tuesday of the year is rolling around somewhat early this year as the second Tuesday is on the 8th. Microsoft has decided to be kind this month though as only

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Security

Data lost by Revenue and Customs

The news story linked above talks about the UK Government losing 25 million records containing names, addresses, national insurance numbers and bank details. Apparently the data was password protected but not encrypted, Now

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Security

Snooping on Facebook user profiles is a 'staff perk'

I'm not a huge fan of Facebook as I really don't see the point of sites like these. Generally, If I've not spoken to anyone in a number of years then there is

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Security

Kensington Laptop Locks (2)

As per the comment on my previous entry the issue of the Kensington laptop lock being pickable is actually an old one. I admit that I never realised this as it was only

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Security

Kensington Laptop Locks

Earlier this week I was sent a link to a video on how to pick a Kensington laptop lock using nothing but a toilet roll. It works. After about 20 minutes practice it

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Security

Security Industry Commentary

Last night I watched the "Diana: Last Days of a Princess" documentary. I admit that I largely watched it just to moan about how much the British media is still concentrating

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Security

Careful when testing security

I was amused to read that two Daily Mirror journalists where arrested when 'testing' security procedures on London Underground. Whilst it they say that they have a 'journalistic right' to expose security holes

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Security

Careful when testing security

I was amused to read that two Daily Mirror journalists where arrested when 'testing' security procedures on London Underground. Whilst it they say that they have a 'journalistic right' to expose security holes

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Security

Is it time to scrap the password?

As password protection gets more secure the actual passwords for users get weaker. A paradox? Not so, let me explain. A few years back the biggest problem was a password going 'over the

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Security

Increase in eCard scams

A few weeks ago I got a fairly genuine looking ecard email but something about it triggered my suspicious so I did some further checking of the mail message and spotted that the

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Security

Reporting new spyware

When setting up the network at the new house I fired up each machine to test out connectivity and other behaviour before putting it back on the network. One of the laptops was

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Security

Information Leakage via social networking

I frequent the website and someone recently asked 'what constitutes an identity?'. I found this an interesting question because there are several ways to answer it ranging from philosophical to technical but

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Security

Profiting from Security vulnerabilities

A new company is offering security researchers the chance to profit from discovering and coming up with innovative fixes for Security Vulnerabilities in products. There web page (linked above) contains the following ominous

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Security

Nimda, Slammer and the like

Now that Microsoft have released a patch for the recent DNS RPC vulnerbility IT Admins should be deploying it as quickly as possible - I was talking to a friend about this today

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Security

Rejoice for it's patch Tuesday

Once again patch Tuesday rolls around and this time we have a total of 18 patches released across five security updates. It's good to see that is the much anticipated fix for the

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Security

InfoSec

I had the pleasure of attending this years infosec event at Olympia and it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon - even with the hard sell By some vendors!! I wasn't aware of any

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Security

Further exploits for DNS Remote management vulnerability

Last Friday Microsoft announced a new security vulnerability in DNS management, today the advisory was updated to include reports of an attack in the wild that is trying to exploit this hole. Whilst

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Security

Goodbye Easter, Hello Patch Tuesday

Many of us have just gotten back into the office after a nice Easter break eating to much chocolate and too many hot cross buns but thanks to Microsoft you had better not

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Security

Animated Cursor Vulnerbility? Not if you get your Security updates from MS via RSS!

I sure that many of you are aware that later on today Microsoft will be releasing a patch for a zero-day security hole in Windows based operating systems that can be accessed by

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Security

Microsoft Release Windows 2003 Service Pack 2

Microsoft have released Windows 2003 Service Pack 2. It's worth downloading and testing to ensure that you can integrate it into your server build process as soon as possible. If this release follows

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Security

Be careful with security exceptions

Last weekend I had an incident with my bank card and I found out that my card had been stopped by my bank 'because of a potential compromise of secured data'. After some

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Security

Patch Tuesday nightmare due

For anyone who hasn't read the you might want to sit down, have a STRONG coffee with some brandy and then click on the link. Microsoft patch tuesday pre-release notification

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Security

Truly secure internal servers

The problem with security lies in striking a balance between being secure and enabling people to do their jobs. The above phrase is pretty much my security mantra although I'm wondering if I

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