February 2006 Archives

I guess maybe I am beating this particular drum a bit hard, but I know a few Mac users and this is no longer just my hypothetical good computing hygyne advice. I really would hate for my Mac friends to find out the hard way that its not safe to play in the street. Following up on AdvisorBits: Welcome to my world, MacUser, I noticed today that there were mulptiple posts to the Incident Handlers Diary as SANS regarding the Apple security issues.

http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1145&rss
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1139&rss
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1138&rss

I thought the remark by Kevin Liston this moring bears repeating, especially since it basically echos mine.

In an effort to use as little hype as possible I only suggest that now is the time for Mac users to seriously consider anti-virus, personal firewalls, and safe browsing habits. It is the time for Mac sysadmins to develop strong patch management policies. This likely means that a Mac is no longer the no-brainer-choice for what computer to get for your parents.

Moohahaha!

I noticed Gregg Keizer of CMP media said that the the exploit for the zero day flaw in OSX is posted over on the Metaspliot Framework site. This combined with the two worms that have recently been detected targeting the Macinstosh platfrom indicate to me that the security though obscurity that my fine feathered Mac friends usually hang their hopes on, has flown the coop.

Now that you're in my world, DON'T FREAK OUT!

Although Apple has not yet released a patch for this, or at least I couldn't find it on the Apple security site where one finds these things, they will. Remember that it is very important to keep up to date with updates that the vendors provide. A zero day exploit is rare, so usually Apple will produce a patch before the exploits are released.

The important things to remember to do for the best computer stability and security which is reasonably possible (no matter what computer or operating system you use) are these :

1. Use good passwords, change them occasionally.
2. Always update your software with security fixes and patches that the manuafacturer provides.
3. Use virus protection and operate behind a firewall.

In 1999 sometime, the guy I worked for brought me a Microsoft Exchange Server to deploy in the company where we worked. Later in 2000 I saw my first Small Business Server which includes a version of Exchange. Microsoft maintains pricing that makes the Small Business Server a very attractive environment for businesses with under 75 users.

Almost all my managed networking clients have the latest Windows Small Business Server 2003, and they all use Exchange albeit in a variety of configurations. For me, it has always been a stable platform. On the other hand I have also heard horror stories of entire companies data stores being lost to corruption or other database issues.

So when I got a log file mailed to me with literally hundreds of errors about the Exchange data store having a "checksum failure", I was pretty concerned. The symptoms are more or less as described in the Knowledge Base Article 318429. And to top it all off right before the errors started, there had been a physical raid disc that needed to be reseated and reconstructed recently. My heart sank as I read.

To repair the corruption in database pages if you do not have a valid backup and you are running the standard version of Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003, run the eseutil /p command, run the eseutil /d command, and then run the isinteg -fix command on the affected store.

Caution After you make repairs to the database by using the eseutil /p switch, the database may not be stable and reliable. Because the repair process deletes database pages, data loss is likely.

Its the truth and Disqualified is what I should be for taking so long to pass on the link to the 2006 Bloggies. Now its too late for you to vote, but not too late to see all the runners up before the winners are announced.

Here's another article I thought was interesting not only because of my own moderate interest in gaming but the author's name is similar to mine. Be sure to check out the rest of The Escapist ezine too.

Both of these links came to me from a new blogger, CH who writes about cooking... and just about anything else that comes to her mind.