[ insider_reports_insider ]
SPN Roundup: Microsoft, Botnets, And Tor
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-02-09
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
It's one of those days where several things seem to be happening at once, so we'll do a quick recap of three stories of interest.
 | | SPN Roundup: Microsoft, Botnets, And Tor |  |
Before you share the love on Valentine's Day next week, Microsoft will be sending system administrators a big bouquet of updates. Patch Tuesday arrives next week, and it looks like it will be one of the beefier update distributions that we have seen recently.
Christopher Budd at Microsoft's Security Response Center blog discussed the advance notification for February's updates. He expects their distribution to begin around 10 am PT, which means those of us on Eastern Time should indulge in some antacids right after lunch.
Windows, Office, Visual Studio, and other Microsoft components will see a dozen security bulletins arrive. A number of them have been rated Critical by Microsoft, meaning that if exploited, the flaws they correct would otherwise present a remote code execution issue.
The attack against DNS root servers that happened recently has been investigated by a number of security researchers. EETimes.com brought forth several points from the SANS Institute that emerged after the attack.
Around 5:30 am ET on Tuesday, February 6th, the massive denial of service attack against the root servers began. SANS believes only a large botnet of compromised, remotely controlled computers could have accomplished this.
Despite the attack, not many people noticed. Attacks against these machines have been happening for years, and administrators have kept pace by increasing capacity, distributing the load (in the case of 10 of the 13 root servers), and implementing an assortment of security solutions.
When Paul Cesarini of Bowling Green State University heard a knock on his office door, he was expecting a student with a drop/add slip. Instead, a couple of campus detectives accompanied by a network security tech familiar to Cesarini stepped in and began to interrogate him about The Onion Router, also known as Tor.
They were curious about Cesarini's use of the free, open source tool that permits anonymous web browsing, along with other functions. Said the professor:
Of course, anonymous Web surfing can be used to conceal fraud and other forms of electronic malfeasance. That was why the police had come to see me. They told me that only two people on our campus were using Tor: me and someone they suspected of engaging in an online scam. The detectives wanted to know whether the other user was a former student of mine, and why I was using Tor.
His accusers claimed Cesarini violated "at least three provisions" of the university's responsible-use policy. The professor happened to be one of the people who edited and revised the policy before Tor or similar software had ever been considered.
He wasn't impressed with that, nor their requests that he stop using Tor or discussing it in his classes. Fortunately, Cesarini had the ultimate weapon all professors wield - the ability to talk one's adversaries into a stupor:
So in the head-on collision between my appreciation of the role IT staff members play on my campus and my understanding of the role I have to play for my students, my need for academic freedom won. I found myself lecturing my three visitors into near catatonia about the uses of Tor.
He plans to continue talking about Tor in his classes.
---
Tags: Microsoft, DoS Attack, Root Servers, Tor
Add to  Del.icio.us |  Digg |  Reddit |  Furl
Get all the updates - 
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
More insider_reports_insider Articles
Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
iEntry 10th Anniversary
RSS
Archive
