By Rod Trent The Internet is inhabited by hackers, individuals who have nothing better to do with their time than to annoy the Earth's general population. Because of these miscreants, Internet sites are sometimes illegally accessed or even put out of commission for a period of time. For the safety of the information contained on any Web site, or more important, the company network, it is a smart practice to keep current with the latest software updates. Because of Microsoft's knack for creating impressive and popular products, it is no surprise that they are the targets of the majority of these hacks. These hackers spend night and day trying to discern a way to make Microsoft look foolish. Fortunately, Microsoft is unlike other vendors in the market. The company welcomes these hacker attempts to pry into their products. And, when the hackers are successful in unlocking a doorway into a particular product, Microsoft can get a security patch out the door in record time. To obtain the latest information on available security patches, visit
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Microsoft's Security Bulletin Search Web site. Microsoft keeps this list
up-to-date, and you can quickly search by version of product and by
year.
To be completely on top of security issues, sign up for Microsoft's
Product Security E-mail Notification service. You can do this by
following these steps:[1] Compose an e-mail to microsoft_security-subscribe- request@announce.microsoft.com. The subject line and the message body are not used to process the subscription request and can be anything you like.
[2] Send the e-mail.
[3] You'll receive a response, asking you to verify that you really want to subscribe. Compose a reply, and put "OK" in the message body (without the quotes). Send the reply.
[4] You'll receive two e-mails, one telling you that you've been added to the subscriber list, and the other with more information on the notification, the service and its purpose. You'll receive security notifications whenever Microsoft sends them. Related book
Windows 2000 Security
by Roberta Bragg
With detailed information on security issues, this book will give you the knowledge, tools, standards and guidance you need to secure your OS, LAN, Server, remote access and Web connections. After reading this book, you will come away with the "how," "why" and "when" of Windows 2000 security features and know how to take advantage of them.
This was first published in March 2001