Microsoft Update

[Terry]

Hello

Excuse me if this is a stupid question. I'm responsible
for a small business server based network. Aside from
Terminal services, most of not all of our ports are
blocked from the outside. This is done through the server
software as well as by a physical firewall. We had a
security expert come in and do this for us after being
hacked several months ago. The small business server
itself is kept up-to-date through Windows Update as far as
security patches etc are concerned. My question is as
follows. Is it important that the other machines in the
network are completely up-to-date with security patches or
is the server the critical point? All of the machines
depend on the server for network access. Again, this may
be a stupid question but I thought I'd ask before I took
the time to go update all the stations. Thank you.

 

[Danny Sanders]

You need to make sure all workstations are patched. A malicious email sent
to a user behind the server can and will "exploit the Internet Explorer
vulnerability" on the users machine. Patching IE on the server will do
nothing to secure IE on the client.

See:
White paper: Software Update Services Overview White Paper

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810796&Product=win2000



hth

DDS W 2k MVP MCSE

 

[Michael_L]

Terry,
Inaddition to making sure all the systems on your are kept
up to date with MS service packs and patches you want to
make sure your virus scanning is kept up to date daily.
Both of these can be configured for automatic updates.
Michael