Re: Security Issues with NT4 being no longer supported.

From: Karl Levinson, mvp (levinson_k_at_despammed.com)
Date: 11/27/04 

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 13:40:14 -0500

"Jordan" <jordanmcclements@totalise.co.uk> wrote in message
news:e8096ce.0411260229.27ae5d2@posting.google.com...
> We have a fairly low tech (NT4 SP6a) setup.

> I know that you can never be too careful etc. But realistically, do I
> NEED to upgrade NT4 in order to be secure?

That's entirely up to you and your needs.

Actually, you *can* be too careful, if, for example, it costs you more money
in purchases and support than it saves in security incidents. There are
arguably more critical unpatched vulnerabilities affecting Windows 2000 and
XP right now, such as the so-called "IFRAME" IE vulnerability. And if
you're running even one NT workstation in your domain, you won't be able to
make your Windows 2003 domain controller that much more secure than an NT
domain controller. You would be pretty upset if you spent a lot of money to
upgrade for the sole reason of security, and then found you were just as
vulnerable to hackers and worms.

As you may know, NT4 server is still supported, e.g. security patches are
still being created.

And you can get support for NT4, just often not for free. I believe
Microsoft will create patches on request for a fee. Since they're already
creating patches for NT4 server, and reportedly NT4 server is the exact same
code as for NT4 workstation, producing a patch might not be as expensive as
you might think. And even if you don't pay for the patches, at least you
can read the security bulletins released for NT server and make an educated
guess that NT workstation is also vulnerable and that the same workarounds
apply.

I think the bigger issue for not using NT is support, not security. Besides
the fact that Microsoft is discontinuing support and you're often on your
own for support, future hardware and software programs from other companies
may not be available for NT, including important things like anti-virus,
word processing / office suites, video cards, etc. On the other hand, in
some large environments like banking, NT is still being used for the same
reason, because some niche programs are still only available for NT.

If you do upgrade, you should probably upgrade servers to 2003 and
workstations to XP Service Pack 2, especially as you purchase new computers.
NT doesn't run very well on laptops and portable devices, whereas XP offers
some compelling advances for such devices. Some environments will find it
acceptable to continue running NT until the age, speed and functionality of
the older computers becomes unacceptable and you find yourself replacing
them with newer devices.

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