Virus and Spam
Filter Enhancements
Our Virus
and spam filter has a new feature available. This enhancement
will
check
for
spam from known spammer IP address not just in the sending
system's IP address but also for any URL listed in the body
of the email.
This feature will block a whole class of common spam where
the email is sent from a newly compromised system not already
on the "known spammer" lists but where a http:well-known-spammer.com
URL is included in the body of the email. This feature will
check the body of the email for any URLs, email addresses,
etc. It then will resolve these to IP addresses and look
them up on "known spammer" lists.
This feature will greatly reduce spam that gets through
with a very low false-positive rate and will take almost
no real time or CPU time to process.
 Top
Is Windows 8 any Better?
Despite much hype from Microsoft, it
appears that most of Windows 8 is the same
tired old bug-ridden code that Microsoft
keeps re-selling to you. This can be seen,
in our opinion, by the fact that most
new severe security bugs reported in Windows
lists Windows 8 as well as old
versions of Windows. Since Microsoft
is forcing you to upgrade anyway, upgrade
to Linux and start enjoying better security,
lower costs, higher performance, and true
ease of use.
Department of Transportation's (DOT)
CIO Daniel Mintz has issued "an indefinite
moratorium" on Windows Vista, Internet
Explorer 7 and Office 2007. A memo
obtained by us says that their CIO is
concerned about the cost involved in
switching to the new products and compatibility
issues with other software in use at
DOT. The memo says "there appears to
be no compelling technical or business
case for upgrading; ... furthermore,
there appear to be specific reasons not
to upgrade."
The three products in question may be
obtained, with approval from Mintz, for
testing purposes only. DOT has 15,000 computer
users running Windows XP Professional;
the ban seems to apply to the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) too, where 45,000
desktops use Windows.
If you enable Vista's voice command,
all a hacker needs to do is to record voice
commands on his web site to take over your
system. It mystifies us how such a simple
solution as disabling voice command when
sounds are being output escapes Microsoft.
Windows's Digital Rights Management
(DRM) is so Draconian that if Microsoft thinks there
is something on your computer that
should not be there Microsoft simply
will delete it. Talk about Big Brother
and trespass! While they claim it only
is to delete viruses and spyware, the
EULA language allows them to delete anything
they don't like, legitimate or not.
We can ensure
the security of your critical data!
Why risk your business and your job
to a security breach?
All statements on this web site are the
opinion of Horizon Network Security.
What harm could a cracker do with
your customers' credit card numbers? Your
customer lists? Your new marketing plan
to get ahead of your competition? Your
new engineering designs? Your bank account
numbers? Financial information that could
affect your stock prices? What would this
cost you? How much down time and adverse
publicity can you afford? Does your
SysAdmin know how to recover without throwing
away all data created since the last
known viable backup? Is the last backup
even valid? Can you quickly determine exactly
what a Cracker has altered on your systems?
Security breaches are costing U.K.
businesses the equivalent of each
worker losing a day of work each year,
according to figures announced by the
British government on 24 April 2002.
Half of U.K. businesses do not encrypt
customer credit card data across the
Internet and only a third encrypt customers'
credit card data on their servers. Publicity
about major security breaches have put
even large companies out of business.
Microsoft's top man says that
Windows(tm) has so many security bugs that
releasing the source code would threaten
U.S. National Security.
A security crisis is starting to emerge
in the world of computing, writes Robin
Bloor. The year 2002 will prove to be the
worst year yet for hacking. The following
year will probably be worse. The number
of breaches of computer security and the
money lost has been escalating rapidly
ever since the Internet was born. If you
characterize computer security as a battle
between the forces of good and the forces
of evil, then at the moment you have to
conclude that the bad guys are winning.
We can ensure
the security of your critical data!
Why risk your business and your job
to a security breach?
Top
Microsoft and Ford
Motor Company use Linux to solve their problems.
To weather the MS-blaster and Sobig-F Windows viruses,
Microsoft replaced its Windows-based www.microsoft.com servers
with Linux servers that could withstand the viruses in August
2003. Shouldn't you?
Ford announced that it would switch its Sales force from
Windows to Linux systems in September 2003. The national
governments of China, France, South Korea, and Mexico already
have switched.
13% of all Microsoft IIS Servers had a "back
door" Trojan running on them, according to a Netcraft
survey published September 12, 2001. We can install a
reliable Linux Firewall to ensure that such a back door cannot
be used or created. We can replace your unreliable, maintenance-intense,
and vulnerability-prone IIS Server, Exchange mail server,
file server, or backup scheme with a low-maintenance, reliable,
high performance, and low cost Linux server or provide other
solutions to these and many other security and administration
problems.
Cyberattack activity increased 79% between July and December
of 2001 according to security-services vendor Riptech
Inc. Don't be part of this year's statistic!
Despite lots of promises by Microsoft, the rate of security
patches [security bugs] in Microsoft's products for 2002
so far is the same as for 2001 according to Security
Flaws Continue to Be Issue for Microsoft. Protect your
vulnerable network with a secure and reliable Linux-based
Firewall from Horizon Network Security!
Cisco
VPN 5000 Vulnerabilities
What harm could a cracker do with your customers'
credit card numbers? Your customer lists? Your new marketing
plan to get ahead of your competition? Your new engineering
designs? Your bank account numbers? Financial information
that could affect your stock prices? What would this cost
you? How much down time and adverse publicity can you
afford? Does your SysAdmin know how to recover without
throwing away all data created since the last known viable backup?
Is the last backup even valid? Can you quickly determine
exactly what a Cracker has altered on your systems?
Security breaches are costing U.K. businesses the
equivalent of each worker losing a day of work each year,
according to figures announced by the British government
on 24 April 2002. Half of U.K. businesses do not encrypt
customer credit card data across the Internet and only a
third encrypt customers' credit card data on their servers.
Publicity about major security breaches have put even large
companies out of business.
Microsoft's top man says that Windows(tm) has so
many security bugs that releasing the source code would threaten
U.S. National Security.
A security crisis is starting to emerge in the world of
computing, writes Robin Bloor. The year 2002 will prove to
be the worst year yet for hacking. The following year will
probably be worse. The number of breaches of computer security
and the money lost has been escalating rapidly ever since
the Internet was born. If you characterize computer security
as a battle between the forces of good and the forces of
evil, then at the moment you have to conclude that the bad
guys are winning.
We can ensure the security of
your critical data! Why risk your business and your job
to a security breach?
Top
Is Your Network Secure?
28% of systems were broken into by hackers after
SysAdmins had "secured" their networks (and believed that
they were unbreakable) in a test in 2000. (Reported by William
Knowles on isn@securityfocus.com.) Many people will "secure" your
network but cannot even explain how TCP spoofing occurs,
how a session or system address is hijacked, or how to prevent
a fragmentation attack.
9
out of 10 viruses prefer Windows. We can protect
your Windows systems or move your critical server functions
to Linux at a cost so low your accountants will smile.
We can protect your network of vulnerable servers,
Windows, NT, Mac, Linux, and Unix systems with our unique
Adaptive Firewall that will automatically detect an attack
and lock the cracker out of all services (in a fraction of
a second) before he can find one that might be vulnerable,
while leaving your systems open for business as usual.
We offer 24x7 monitoring of your important systems
for system and network failures, defaced web pages, attempted
breaches of security, and even when your systems are running
low on disk space. We can ensure that connections with employees
at home and traveling are secure and not a point of entry
into your otherwise secure network.
Linux Firewalls and web, mail, and web servers work
great in networks of Windows desktops, laptops, and servers but
if you are considering trying Linux on the desktop too, Windows
to Linux HOWTO will help you decide whether this might
work well for you.
Even Wall-Mart recognizes the value of Linux and sells
computers running it at its store, as written up in the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. The European Union is moving to
Linux; Nambia uses Linux and rebuffed Microsoft's offer to
move back.
Horizon Network Security was founded by Bob Toxen,
noted security expert with 30 years of combined Unix and
Linux experience and author of the book Real
World Linux Security: Intrusion Prevention, Detection, and
Recovery, Second Edition, published by Prentice Hall.
Bob was one of the 162 official developers of Berkeley
Unix and he was one of the 4 people who ported Unix to the
Silicon Graphics workstation for SGI. He helped develop the
software for the world's first Internet Bank, also in use
by many of the largest U.S. and Canadian banks. He also designed
the client/server system that NASA uses for keeping track
of Shuttle payloads and created the software that drives
Netgear's Linux-based Network Disk Devices, the ND508 and
ND520. It serves critical roles for Lloyds of London and
Japan's telephone company.
Bob's 32 years of Unix and Linux experience includes security,
network programming, and porting software. We have knowledgeable
staff capable of handling your simple and complex requirements
in a cost-effective manner. We are on-call 24 hours a day,
7 days a week.
Top
Is Microsoft a Titanic hitting an Open Source Iceburg?
Microsoft finally is admitting in its financial filings
that Linux and other Open Source products are eating into
its revenues. Worse, Microsoft admits, is that they are seeing
is the tip of the iceberg. Their FUD (Fear, Uncertainty,
and Doubt) and lies about relative operating cost and support
no longer is working.
To make up for revenue lost to Linux, Microsoft has raised
prices, forced customers to upgrade more frequently by stopping
support for existing produces sooner. They have used the
DMCA, encryption technology ("Trusted Computing"),
and software patents to prevent mixed platform shops and
interoperability.
Are you going down with the Microsoft ship? We can help
you move to the secure, inexpensive Linux future.
Top
9/11: our response
We are a small company of a few people. For many years our
president, Bob Toxen, has been a volunteer pilot with Angel
Flight of Georgia, a charity that provides free air transport
for medical patients, blood supplies, and occasionally for
organs for transplant and medical personnel. Each pilot not
only volunteers his time but also pays his own aircraft operating
expenses for these flights. An Angel Flight of Georgia flight
transported the head of the Georgia chapter of the Red Cross
to Ground Zero to help with operations and a different flight
transported 1100 pounds of blood supplies from Georgia to
New York to help survivors.
On the evening of 9/11 Bob offered his services to Angel
Flight for any needed flight to help in the wake of the worst
single terrorist attack in history. He pointed out that he
could leave at a moment's notice (despite having substantial
client work queued up) and was familiar with the airspace
and airports around New York City and Washington, DC. He
did not expect to be called, assuming that almost every pilot
would be volunteering for this special help. (We all are
on call every day for flights.)
While a patient transport flight is routine, responding
to disasters is not. One may not be coming home for days,
special procedures probably will be in place, and the normally
very ordered world of aviation will be much less so. Most
people do not know that the first supplies transported into
disaster areas, such as those hit by hurricanes and earthquakes,
usually are by small planes. Often the roads are destroyed
or clogged with refugees. This has been true especially in
some of the worst Florida hurricanes and California earthquakes.
To his surprise, he was called on the afternoon of 9/12/2001
and asked to make a flight to Mississippi to provide emergency
air transport of blood supplies. (Until processed, such supplies
have a very short shelf life.) The round trip three leg flight
took six hours, not including flight planning, obtaining
a weather briefing, and purchasing charts.
Security was "tighter than in Russia", involving
special clearance procedures, authorization from NORAD Air
Defense for takeoff, armed police checkpoints, and a FAA
checkpoint. When the FAA Inspector, a personal friend, reviewed
military intercept procedures with Bob, he got scared. He
found out later that the flight (and the few other civilian
flights operating that day) were shadowed by armed Air Force
fighters ready to shoot down any suspicious aircraft. Bob
made a similar flight the following Sunday.
Bob also advised the Red Cross on the best ways to build
the many laptops needed in a hurry for Ground Zero operations.
Bob donated generously to funds to help the families of
the brave firemen who went into the Twin Towers to save lives
but never came out again.
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