Subject: Steve Gibson's March/2001 News from GRC.COM ...
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001
"If you, or anyone you know, ARE using any version of Windows NT or 2000, you really should check out PatchWork!"
New freeware utility developed and released:
"PATCHWORK"
_________________________________________________________________
As you may recall, the last eMail from me was the early December
announcement of the new "LeakTest" personal firewall leakage
tester. Thanks to your support, 775,778 copies have been
downloaded ... and all major firewall vendors have updated their
products to plug their leaks. In the future, a next generation
of LeakTest will highlight additional problem areas in personal
computing firewalls.
So what is PATCHWORK ??
Last Thursday (March 8th) the United States Federal Bureau of
Investigation -- the FBI -- announced that the Windows NT and
Windows 2000 Internet web servers belonging to at least 40
prominent eCommerce companies have been systematically broken
into by Eastern European hackers. After having their private
customer credit card data stolen, the companies were financially
extorted under the threat of public disclosure of their customers'
data. More than one million credit card purchasing records have
been stolen. You can read the full FBI press release here:
<http://grc.com/pw/FBIannouncement.htm>
Shortly before the FBI's public announcement, I was contacted by
people in Washington and asked if I could produce a utility to
instantly determine whether a Windows NT or 2000 Internet server
was vulnerable to these attacks, and to search the server for any
evidence of previous penetration. The FBI provided all of the
specific details required, so I quickly created my latest
freeware: "PatchWork" (just 30k bytes).
PatchWork is ONLY useful for users running Windows NT or 2000
-- so I know that it will not be of interest to everyone -- but I
wanted you to know that it exists. If you, or anyone you know,
ARE using any version of Windows NT or 2000, you really should
check out PatchWork! It is opening MANY people's eyes ...
<http://grc.com/pw/patchwork.htm>
_________________________________________________________________ |
