Tuesday, February 17, 2004

directly from microsofts website...

"If you're running Windows Server 2000 or Windows NT 4 Server in your enterprise, chances are you have spent quite a bit of time reducing the attack profile of these systems by applying patches and removing unneeded services and functionality for them to be as secure as possible. Out of the box, neither of these operating systems offer the strong security required by enterprises. IT administrators need to be very careful to configure the various security mechanisms after installation. It's been a hard lesson for IT: Improperly configured and unpatched servers are a prime target for exploits, worms and viruses."

There was a footnote I found amusing...

"Footnote 1: One must understand that the security shortcomings of older operating systems are a sign of the times. When these operating systems were developed, system exposure to the Internet was at a minimum and exploit tools developed by elite hackers were not widely distributed to less-skilled hackers. "