Re: I was hacked twice the last few days.. 8-(

From: Jerry Leslie (LESLIE@JRLVAX.HOUSTON.RR.COM)
Date: 04/24/02


From: LESLIE@JRLVAX.HOUSTON.RR.COM (Jerry Leslie)
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 14:47:00 GMT

Johan Eliasson (nebol@home.se) wrote:
: Thanks for your replies!
: I'm gonna try Apache.

Gartner was right on IIS...

   http://www3.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=101034
   Nimda Worm Shows You Can't Always Patch Fast Enough
   
   Nimda Worm Shows You Can't Always Patch Fast Enough
   19 September 2001
   John Pescatore
   
   Nimda bundles several known exploits against Internet Information
   Server and other Microsoft software. Enterprises with Web applications
   should start to investigate less-vulnerable Web server products.

   Nimda Worm Shows You Can't Always Patch Fast Enough

   Nimda bundles several known exploits against Internet Information
   Server and other Microsoft software. Enterprises with Web applications
   should start to investigate less-vulnerable Web server products.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   Event
   
   On 18 September 2001, a new mass-mailing computer worm began infecting
   computers worldwide, damaging local files as well as remote network
   files. The w32.Nimda.A @ mm worm can spread through e-mail, file
   sharing and Web site downloads. For more information, visit:
   http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/topics/Nimda.asp or
   http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.nimda.a@mm.html.
   
   First Take
   
   As a "rollup worm," Nimda bundles several known exploits against
   Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), Internet Explorer (IE)
   browser, and operating systems such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP,
   which have IIS and IE embedded in their code. To protect against
   Nimda, Microsoft recommends installing numerous patches and service
   packs on virtually every PC and server running IE, IIS Web servers or
   the Outlook Express e-mail client. As the earlier Code Red worm
   showed, many servers and PCs running IIS Web server processes may not
   be obvious since they may be run as personal Web servers on the
   intranet but still be exposed to the Internet.
   
   Code Red also showed how easy it is to attack IIS Web servers (see
   Gartner FirstTake FT-14-2441 "Lack of Security Processes Keeps Sending
   Enterprises to 'Code Red'"). Thus, using Internet-exposed IIS Web
   servers securely has a high cost of ownership. Enterprises using
   Microsoft's IIS Web server software have to update every IIS server
   with every Microsoft security patch that comes out - almost weekly.
   However, Nimda (and to a lesser degree Code Blue) has again shown the
   high risk of using IIS and the effort involved in keeping up with
   Microsoft's frequent security patches.
   
   Gartner recommends that enterprises hit by both Code Red and Nimda
   immediately investigate alternatives to IIS, including moving Web
   applications to Web server software from other vendors, such as
   iPlanet and Apache. Although these Web servers have required some
   security patches, they have much better security records than IIS and
   are not under active attack by the vast number of virus and worm
   writers. Gartner remains concerned that viruses and worms will
   continue to attack IIS until Microsoft has released a completely
   rewritten, thoroughly and publicly tested, new release of IIS.
   Sufficient operational testing should follow to ensure that the
   initial wave of security vulnerabilities every software product
   experiences has been uncovered and fixed. This move should include any
   Microsoft .NET Web services, which requires the use of IIS. Gartner
   believes that this rewriting will not occur before year-end 2002 (0.8
   probability).
   
   Analytical Source: John Pescatore, Information Security Strategies"

The only thing better would be to replace Windows while you're at it
with OpenVMS, which has a Compaq-supported version of Apache.

--Jerry Leslie leslie@clio.rice.edu (my opinions are strictly my own)
  Note: leslie@jrlvax.houston.rr.com is invalid for email



Relevant Pages

  • Re: preventing username enumeration on NT4
    ... Nimda Worm Shows You Can't Always Patch Fast Enough ... should start to investigate less-vulnerable Web server products. ... Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), ...
    (comp.security.misc)
  • Re: preventing username enumeration on NT4
    ... Nimda Worm Shows You Can't Always Patch Fast Enough ... should start to investigate less-vulnerable Web server products. ... Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), ...
    (comp.os.ms-windows.nt.admin.security)
  • Re: preventing username enumeration on NT4
    ... Nimda Worm Shows You Can't Always Patch Fast Enough ... should start to investigate less-vulnerable Web server products. ... Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), ...
    (comp.os.ms-windows.nt.admin.security)
  • Re: preventing username enumeration on NT4
    ... Nimda Worm Shows You Can't Always Patch Fast Enough ... should start to investigate less-vulnerable Web server products. ... Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), ...
    (comp.security.misc)
  • Alert: Secured IIS Project
    ... IIS boxes on the planet secured against the more important exploits. ... New information about the worm ... Microsoft Security Bulletin ...
    (NT-Bugtraq)