Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Slammed Indiana's portal was knocked offline by the Slammer virus.  The virus also impacted things like dispatch service in the Seattle area and about 100 servers at Arizona State University.  That's not good.  Troy Jessup discusses the impact at UEN.  I was watching all weekend to make sure that our online services were still operational.  Rick Gee, state security manager, sent out this notice to State agencies: As many of you are aware a fast-moving worm swept through the Internet late Friday and early Saturday night. In response to the worm, ITS blocked the affected tcp and udp (1433&34) ports at the Internet router. We advise all agencies to follow the recommendations cited by the FBI's infrastructure protection group: "There are a few things that need to be done other than just blocking 1433 and 1434. On top of that, if you are running MS Windows 2000 Server or 2000 Advanced Server, install Microsoft patch MS-02-039. As well, identify applications that have embedded SQL or MSDE (i.e. Visio Enterprise and several other MS applications). FYI - the patch does NOT work for MS NT4.0 Server. You will not need to remove programs from your hard drives since this worm is apparently memory resident and does not write to disk; however, this also means that your anti-virus programs will not detect the worm. After installing the MS patch, you will need to reboot the system. Additionally, if you decide to shut down access to ports 1433 and 1434, if you have enough detailed information about your business or organization's needs, just shut down access to those ports from UNTRUSTED hosts - this will allow you to continue with normal operations that require SQL, and to block undesired traffic. Note: Do not be surprised if you notice that you Intrusion Detection Systems have gone blind - this is an unfortunate side effect of the worm with some IDSs (too much traffic - sensors wigging out)." If you have any questions please contact the ITS help desk and they will be able to put you in contact with the appropriate person. 7:27:08 AM

CIO Goals Val Oveson, the new CIO for the State of Utah discussed five points with the Senate confirmation committee and the ACIO council that he will be working to implement: Restore confidence among IT workers in the State Implement the vision of eGovernment Ensure privacy and security in the State's information technology systems Pursue enterprise computing Stay ahead of the technology curve 7:19:30 AM

CommIX In an important post, Pete Kruckenberg discusses a project to create a national Internet exchange in Utah.  Pete refers to the Utah Community Internet Exchange (CommIX) which interconnects many of the major ISPs in Utah and surrounding areas.  He continues: Utah is in a good position (well, better than some other states) to make this happen. Most of the fiber routes across the Western U.S. meet in Utah. We are also central to the Western U.S., so a lot of the surrounding states are served by telecommunications services that pass through or originate in Utah. This is also (that I'm aware of) the only state-backed project of its kind, which provides a high level of financial security, neutrality and long-term focus. UEN is actively pursuing the establishment of a national exchange in Utah. Our sponsorship of and participation with CommIX has united local and regional networks in a common interest for better connectivity. The CommIX model we are developing with Utah municipal networks furthers that local momentum. The national peering we began late last year expands our influence to a national level and begins directing national attention towards Utah. I just learned about the project and am very interested. 6:12:50 AM

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.