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Picking at a Virus-Ridden Corpse, Part II
9/24/2003
2. Issues with E-mail
Am I the only one who's fed up with receiving non-delivery notices about virus-infested e-mail that I didn't send?
If an antivirus gateway is smart enough to detect the type of virus that's present in a message it receives, it should also be smart enough to identify virus strains which are known to always forge the "From" header. Do not report non-delivery of virus infested e-mail to forged "senders!"
If you must report non-delivery of a message to someone, do header analysis and report it to the abuse-reporting contact for the net block that handed you the message. Don’t bug an innocent party who had the bad luck to get forged into a virus-laden message as the putative sender!
And if you do send a non-delivery notice, don’t include a complete 140K copy of the dang virus (even if you do "defang" it)!
While we're on the topic of e-mail, remind users that:
- Some e-mail programs (particularly ones which are closely tied to the underlying operating system, like Outlook and Outlook Express) have historically been more vulnerable to virus attacks than other e-mail programs, and
- Plain-text e-mail tends to be elegantly small in size and universally readable, unlike bloated html-ified e-mail, or attachments prepared in some proprietary word processing program
Rediscover the quiet efficiency and invulnerability of command-line plain-text
e-mail! (Frank da Cruz of Columbia University d'es an eloquent job of making
the case for returning to plain text e-mail in his Safe Network Computing: Windows
Desktop" page.
3. Everyone's a System Administrator (And most of us discharge
"our duties" poorly!)
Our most recent viral adventure made it pretty clear that everyone who has a
computer is a system administrator, whether we want to be one or not, and that
most of us aren't very good at that job.
Consider the user's side of a typical post-compromise security debriefing:
- No, a strong password wasn't put on the administrator account.
- No, routine backups weren't taken.
- No, critical security patches weren't applied.
- No, unneeded services weren't disabled.
- No, shared disks and directories had not been secured.
- No, we didn't all subscribe to security notification mailing lists (and even if we had, we wouldn't have understood the subtle security vulnerabilities which would get discussed, anyway).
The list of ways that press-ganged amateur system administrators failed to perform
is long and depressingly varied, but those failures should hardly be a surprise
or a disappointment: users really aren’t system administrators!
The customary solution to the problem of end-user-as-crummy-sysadmin is to suggest
substitution of some level of central IT automation: "We'll use just one
model of workstation, and then have central IT remotely update all those systems
when they need it." Right.
Recommended Reading
- News Update :: Tuesday, August 26, 2008
:::::: NEWS
: Report: Green Efforts Improving on Campuses
: Polytechnic Institute of NYU Deploys Array Networks Equipment for Access Control
: Oracle Releases Student Administration Integration Pack
: Red Hat Hacked, Company Issues Security Advisory
: Sun Open Sources Mobile Toolkit LWUIT
: Vulnerability Management Needed for Security, Study Says
: Microsoft Details SharePoint-SQL 2008 Integration
: Higher Ed Growing into BI, Data Warehousing
: LectureShare Updates Free Course Management System - Campus Security :: August 22, 2008
:::::: CASE STUDY
: Corralling Identity Management
:::::: CAMPUS SECURITY NEWS
: Vulnerability Management Needed for Security, Study Says
: Wayne State Deploys Q1 Labs QRadar to Manage and Secure Network
: KU Medical Center Installs Real-time Beacon System
: Virginia Tech Tries 'Compliance Sheriff' To Improve Web Site Accessibility
: Microsoft, BearingPoint Team Up To Provide Risk-Based Compliance Solution
: Collaboration Key to Security, Microsoft Says
: IBM Unveils New Software Designed To Streamline eDiscovery
: Security Woes Up, as PHP and OSS Make the List - IT Trends :: Thursday, August 21, 2008
:::::: INTERVIEW
:: Higher Ed Growing into BI, Data Warehousing
:::::: IT NEWS
:: Microsoft Changes Virtualization Licensing Rules
:: Vorex Upgrades Web-based Data Collection Tool for Schools
:: AT&T 'Big Mobile' Grant Extended
:: U Illinois Implements New StorMagic SAN in 15 Minutes
:: OOXML Reaffirmed, ISO/IEC Reject Appeals
:: Butler U Deploys Virtual Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway
:: Linux Application Checker Brings Distro Help - SmartClassroom :: Wednesday, August 20, 2008
:::::: INTERVIEW
: The Power of Wikis in Higher Ed
:::::: NEWS and PRODUCT UPDATES
: Sakai 2.5.2 Gets Performance Boost; New Modules Released
: Georgia Virtual Tech Moves to Angel LMS for Web-based Instruction
: Video Spotlight: Campus Technology 2008 Keynote Address
: AT&T 'Big Mobile' Grant Extended
: Colorado State Launches New Online School - Web 2.0 :: Wednesday, August 20, 2008
:::::: THE BUZZ
: Digital Arrays for Evidence-Based Learning
:::::: WEB 2.0 IN ACTION
: "That Which Weaves Together:" The NSF Cyberlearning Report
:::::: PRODUCTS AND APPS
: Sakai 2.5.2 Gets Performance Boost; New Modules Released
: Vorex Upgrades Web-based Data Collection Tool for Schools
: Colorado State Launches New Online School
: Collexis' Lawriter Debuts Social Network for Law Students - News Update :: Tuesday, August 19, 2008
:::::: NEWS
: Video Spotlight: Campus Technology 2008 Keynote Address
: Report Finds Dip in Microsoft's Browser Share
: Butler U Deploys Virtual Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway
: VMware's Updates Cause Problems, CEO Apologizes
: Intel Releases Interface for USB 3.0
: Linux Application Checker Brings Distro Help
: Wayne State Deploys Q1 Labs QRadar to Manage and Secure Network
: SunGard HE Releases New Unified Digital Campus
: Higher Education Fertile Ground for 802.11n WiFi, ABI Reports
