News


RPC Vulnerability Affects NT, W2K, XP

Microsoft on Wednesday warned users of an "important" new vulnerability involving the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol in Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP that can allow a denial-of-service attack.

CERT Sorts Out Recent Barrage of Lotus Vulnerabilities

CERT on Wednesday moved to help users make sense of a flurry of recent vulnerability notices involving Lotus Notes and Domino on several platforms, including Windows.

VMWare Unveils Desktop Virtualization Upgrade

Next week, VMWare will begin shipping the 4.0 version of its desktop virtualization software, VMWare Workstation.

Microsoft Names Kevin Johnson Group VP for Sales

Kevin Johnson took over the job of group vice president for Microsoft's worldwide sales, marketing and services group.

Unisys Updates Server Management Software

Unisys this week introduced updated software for self-management and self-healing of its massive ES7000 Windows servers, and also showed off add-on modules for easing server consolidation and resource management.

Critical Flaw Affects All Supported Versions of Windows

Microsoft late Wednesday alerted customers to a critical flaw affecting all versions of Windows since Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98.

Flaw Found in Microsoft Enterprise Firewall

Microsoft's enterprise firewall contains a security hole that attackers could use to cause denial-of-service conditions in internal Domain Name Service servers. The security flaw with Internet Security & Acceleration Server rates as a "moderate" security risk, Microsoft security officials determined.

Mobile Development Platform Launches

Microsoft formally launched the .NET Compact Framework for supporting and creating mobile applications on Wednesday at the Microsoft Mobility Developers Conference. Redmond has been talking about the framework for a year, with beta releases in April and September and an official Release to Manufacturing in October.

Sprint, Verizon Offer PocketPC Phones

Verizon Wireless and Sprint launched Microsoft PocketPC Phone Edition offerings this week that open the data-intensive phone devices to a much broader market in the United States.

HP Unveils Low-end Server for $550

Hewlett-Packard this week introduced an entry-level server starting at $550 for cost-sensitive, small- to medium-sized businesses. The server is part of the tc2100 series, which costs less than HP's flagship line of ProLiant industry-standard servers.

Commentary: A Warped View of Monopoly

Microsoft is waking and smelling the coffee -- and it isn’t Java. It's Linux.

Microsoft Preps Server Deployment and Administrative Tool for Large Enterprises

While the Microsoft Management Summit this week was long on promises, with the far-off Microsoft System Center product taking center stage, Microsoft did announce one deliverable designed to make Windows server deployment and administration easier at very large enterprises.

Critical New Flaw Found in IIS 5.0

A critical, newly discovered flaw in Internet Information Services 5.0 could open Windows 2000-based Web servers, and other Windows 2000 systems that were installed with default settings, to a code execution vulnerability.

Next Version of MOM Coming in 2004

Microsoft plans to release the next version of Microsoft Operations Manager in 2004 with ease of use, rapid deployment and better management packs being the top priorities for Microsoft's first full rewrite of the technology it bought from NetIQ.

Microsoft Unveils Management Roadmap

Microsoft will combine Systems Management Server and Microsoft Operations Manager into a unified product called Microsoft System Center over the next few years, the company revealed in a management roadmap keynote Tuesday in Las Vegas.

No New Version of Application Center Coming

Microsoft will not release a new version of Application Center, the server product introduced two years ago for deploying and managing high-availability Web applications.

AMD Explains Opteron Model Numbers

AMD, continuing its quest to move the industry away from the clockspeed references in processor names that it argues are nearly meaningless, on Thursday announced a new model number strategy for its Opteron line of processors that launches April 22.

Analyst Survey Finds IT Downgrades Estimated Spending Growth

A new survey of CIOs by analysts at Aberdeen Group finds that the IT executives are downgrading the amount that they expect to increase their technology budgets. In the current survey, conducted in January, enterprises executives expected to increase technology budgets by 2.7 percent over the next six to 12 months. A similar Aberdeen survey in September had CIOs projecting their overall budgets growing 3.7 percent over the next six to 12 months.

CERT Warns of Windows Shares Vulnerability

Enterprise IT needs to get tough on remote users to make sure broadband connections are secure, a new bulletin from the CERT/CC shows. The security researchers at CERT are finding an increase in reports of Windows 2000 and Windows XP system compromises due to poorly protected file shares. Attackers are exploiting weak or missing passwords on Administrator accounts on Server Message Block (SMB) file shares.

iSCSI Driver Coming to Windows in June

Microsoft will deliver Internet SCSI (iSCSI) support in June as an add-in for Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional. The driver will be free and available as a download, Microsoft said Wednesday.