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Alternatives to Tape Backup
You may ask, isn't tape an anachronism in the age of optical disks, removable hard drives and a plethora of whiz-bang, random-access storage media? In many ways it is, but because of the nature of backup it doesn't really matter that tape is slow...
Easy Web Page Watcher Watches Web Pages For You
Too many days I found myself constantly checking the same financial news web pages for any news about the companies I was currently invested in. Between clicking on these web pages and constantly clicking on other financial web pages to obtain stock...
Internet Access for Poor Countries
Why worry about Internet access for poverty-stricken people in developing countries? Because a large disparity in income causes resentment, which may in turn lead to radicalism and to horrible attacks, such as occurred in New York, Washington and...
Protect Your PC with these Top Free Software Programs
This is a dangerous world for a computer user- threats multiply
by the hour designed to swipe your data, cripple your network,
steal your identity and in general- wreck havoc. Fortunately you
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"When is Free not REALLY Free?"
"When is Free not REALLY Free?" copyright 2001-02 John Evans We all like to get something for free. Whether it's free software, free advertising, free ebooks, or free coupons, they're fun to get. But when is free REALLY free? "When there are NO...
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Redirect Worms Away
My site is hosted on an Apache web server. Why is that? Because, in my humble opinion, Microsoft's IIS web server is in no way qualified to service internet web sites (it is excellent as an intranet and applications server, however). Another reason is the vast number of security issues that seem to pop up day after day.
In point of fact, the Gartner Group has recommended "that businesses hit by both Code Red and Nimda immediately investigate alternatives to IIS, including moving Web applications to Web server software from other vendors such as iPlanet and Apache".
http://www4.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=101034
But what about those of us who are already hosting their sites on Apache servers? I've seen lots of articles about how to protect, detect, cleanse and prevent the worms from attacking IIS servers. While the worms do not penetrate Apache security, they do cause damage.
Some of the damage includes:Server logs get filled with junk - The Nimda worm alone created over 20,000 entries in a 2 day period in my log files.
The server is made very busy - This is especially true if you've got a custom 404 error page, as I do. This means that every time the worm attempts a penetration, then entire 404 page is returned (in my case, that's about 40k). That adds up to a lot of wasted bandwidth.
I thought about this issue for a while after examining my logs and seeing thousands of 404 errors from attempted worm penetrations. Surely there was a way to at least reduce the impact of these things? As I saw the 404 error count increase, I realized that a significant portion of the bandwidth that I was paying for was being thrown away.
An examination of the log files produced several thousand attempts at each of the following URLs. Obviously each of these is the address of a possible weakness in an IIS server.
/_mem_bin/..%5c../..%5c../..%5c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe /c/winnt/system32/cmd.exe /d/winnt/system32/cmd.exe /scripts/..%2f../winnt/system32/cmd.exe /scripts/..%c1%9c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe /scripts/..%%35%63../winnt/system32/cmd.exe /scripts/ .%%35c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe
/scripts/..%c0%2f../winnt/system32/cmd.exe /scripts/..%c0%af../winnt/system32/cmd.exe /MSADC/root.exe
The Apache web server provides a feature called .htaccess, which provides commands to control a web site. This file is very obscure and extremely useful when used properly. You have to be careful when editing .htaccess files, as a small mistake can make your web site stop working. What I like to do is immediately test the site to be sure it works.
Be sure not to make the mistake that I made once - I browsed to my site, saw that the home page came up, and went to work. Later, I found it was not working but appeared to work because the home page was stored in my browser cache. Thus I learned a simple lesson the hard way: always hit the refresh key of the browser when testing .htaccess changes.
I did a little research and testing, and added the following lines to my .htaccess file.
redirect /scripts http://www.stoptheviruscold.invalid redirect /MSADC http://www.stoptheviruscold.invalid redirect /c http://www.stoptheviruscold.invalid redirect /d http://www.stoptheviruscold.invalid redirect /_mem_bin http://stoptheviruscold.invalid redirect /msadc http://stoptheviruscold.invalid RedirectMatch (.*)cmd.exe$ http://stoptheviruscold.invalid$1
These lines did exactly what I wanted them to do - they stopped the virus from creating 404 errors in my log file, and they prevented my 404 error page from being triggered, thus creating lots of useless bandwidth utilization. There is still some bandwidth used, obviously, but it is far less than it would have been. The load on the server is also considerably reduced, which should make my web hosting company happy.
Note that log file entries are still made by the various worms as they attempt to penetrate the server. These entries do now show as errors, which makes it easier to pick out real errors from the logs.
About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
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| Tucows Downloads - Download Freeware and Shareware Software |
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| IEEE Software |
| IEEE Computer Society's magazine covering all aspects of software, including software engineering. |
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| ZDNet's Software Directory is the Web's largest library of software downloads. Covering software for Windows, Mac, and Mobile systems, ZDNet's Software ... |
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| FSF - The Free Software Foundation |
| Free software is a matter of liberty not price. Think of "free" as in "free speech". |
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| Apple - Software |
| Software products for your digital life. ... The perfect addition for professional review. QuickTime Broadcaster. Encoding software for live events. ... |
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| Open Directory - Computers: Software |
| In Partnership with AOL Search. about dmoz | report abuse/spam | help. the entire directory, only in Computers/Software. Top: Computers: Software (38471) ... |
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| freshmeat.net: Welcome to freshmeat.net |
| About: The Web browser is probably the most frequently used software today, ... Web professionals can use the software for functional testing and regression ... |
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| Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF) |
| Listing of the GNU software packages. |
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| Sun Software |
| Get enterprise-class software--Solaris 10 OS, the Java Enterprise System, ... Sun Java StorageTek Software reduces cost and complexity with a single, ... |
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| Joel on Software |
| A weblog by Joel Spolsky, a programmer working in New York City, about software and software companies. |
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| Amazon.com Software: Computer & video games, business, accounting ... |
| Online shopping for computer & video games, business & office productivity software, software from Microsoft, Apple, Adobe & more; accounting, antivirus, ... |
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| IBM Software - Home Page |
| IBM home page for all of its software products, including Lotus and Tivoli, with keyword search, category browse and AZ product names. |
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| Opera web browser: Homepage |
| Copyright © 2006 Opera Software ASA. All rights reserved. Skip navigation. Opera Software ... Copyright Opera Software ASA . All rights reserved. ... |
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| Google Directory - Computers > Software |
| Search only in Software Search the Web ... Software Categorized by Letter: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ... |
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