Many thanks go to Jeff Kell, Ryan Seale, Mike Ward, Rusty Leutz, and
Jon Ritterbush, that I know of, and to any others of you that have
also participated, for your weekend work in responding and assisting
in response to the MS SQL database worm attack on the campus
computer servers and the network.

I'd like to point out that the security patch that prevents this worm from
infecting a server was published by Microsoft at the end of July 2002
and is included in service pack 3 for SQL database server.

This experience should drive home for everyone who is responsible for
a server on the campus network, and for the department head for any
department that runs a server, that it is of high importance to install all
security patches as current as possible on all servers.  Not only is this
your responsibility under UT Fiscal Policy, the UTC Acceptable Use
Practices, and probably the Federal Patriot Act, but it is your responsibility
to the students, faculty, and staff that use the campus network and to
the millions of global users of the Internet.

System administrators should subscribe to the security mailing list from
the vendor of your software. For Microsoft, see the following web page:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/technet/security/current.asp

Up to date patches and good password practices go a very long way to
prevent security problems with computers and the network.

To paraphrase, a gram of prevention is worth a kilogram of reaction.

Thanks,
Richard
--
Richard L Gambrell, Director of Computing Systems and Networks
Information Technology Division, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Fax: 423-425-4150                Support Help-Desk: 423-425-4000
Direct phone: 423-425-5316       ITD Business Office: 423-425-1755
Mobile (urgent): 423-432-5122    Main UTC: 423-425-4111
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