Sasser Worm Suspect Arrested

A high school student was arrested by German authorities Friday. The 18 year old man is suspected of creating the Sasser Worm which infected over a million computers and cost millions of dollars of damage, even including causing the delays and cancellations of airline flights in some areas. Information on the arrest is minimal as the story is just breaking. I'll post more information here as it becomes available.

Your Laptop Is Being Repaired ....By UPS!

I really like UPS. Maybe it's because they have been extremely reliable over the 21 years we have been using them. Maybe it's because every driver we have had delivering to us has always been a professional, maybe it's because they just do it right. I have been reading a bit about UPS over the last year and have been intrigued by their business direction. I learned that most of the cars in the auto industry are actually delivered by UPS and that they are managing whole warehouses for companies. They have created a whole division called Supply Chain Solutions that helps their Clients with handling the products that UPS used to just deliver.

Now they are repairing Toshiba laptop computers. They will pick up the broken laptop, send it to their Louisville repair center (staffed with technicians with an average of 7 years experience), fix it and return it to you normally within 1 business day. If they need parts they will get them fast via their own shipping network. Think this is strange? They already do this for cell phones, printers, scanners, projectors, PDAs, etc. You just didn't know it.

UPS is a very good company making some very interesting investments to enable them to provide expanded services to their Clients.

Another Serious Internet Issue

For the second day in a row a serious Internet security issue has been announced. This flaw is specifically related to Cisco routers which many companies use to connect to the Internet. This flaw could allow hackers to crash the Cisco router therefore breaking the company's Internet connection or cause websites to go off line temporarily. Cisco has already created a patch. Any company using a Cisco router to connect to the Internet should install the patch to avoid the problem from occurring. Call our office if you have any questions.

Possible Big Problems For The Internet

On Thursday a computer researcher will reveal a flaw he has discovered in TCP/IP, the basic language of the Internet. He actually discovered the flaw last year. Since the discovery, hardware and software vendors have been scrambling to create patches for their products to mitigate the problem. The flaw can allow a hacker to interrupt Internet communications at will. This could be a very serious problem. It is anticipated that after the presentation on Thursday hackers will know how to exploit the flaw "within minutes".

The Department of Homeland Security has issued a security alert which can be found here. This flaw must be mitigated by Internet Service Providers and router vendors. It has very little to do with individual computers on the Internet.

TCP/IP, the underlying language of the Internet was developed years ago and was not designed with security in mind. It has come a long way but needs to be revamped. Actually, TCP/IP Version 6, the replacement for the current Version 4, is beginning to be implemented on the Internet. Version 6 will eliminate several issues with Version 4. It is just taking too long to get implemented. Perhaps this will push it along!

Spammers Really Do Get Caught

Check out this article. It's good to see that at least one or two of these idiots get caught now and then. I really wish these stories would make the national news. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel!