Microsoft Environment Analysis Essay

Abstract Windows of Vulnerability is defined as the ability to attack something that is at risk. Hackers search and pride themselves on finding vulnerabilities or creating their own within a system. A few examples of vulnerabilities that will be covered in this paper are CodeRed, Spida, Slammer, Lovesan, and Sasser. The worm named Code Red was observed on the internet on July 13, 2001. Computers running Microsoft IIS web server were attacked with this worm. Code Red worm did not infect the largest amount of computers until July 19, 2001 with 359,000 hosts being infected. The worm would spread itself in a vulnerability known as a buffer overflow. It would do this by using a long string of the repetition of the letter â€Å"N† to overflow a buffer. Spida worm infects via Microsoft SQL installations with administrator accounts that have no passwords defined. Microsoft recommends the â€Å"sa† account be set upon installation but many servers are not properly secured after installat ion. The main purpose of the Spida worm is to export an infected server’s Sam password database. SQL Slammer worm caused a denial of service on Internet host and slowed down general internet traffic. On January 25, 2003 it spread rapidly and infected 75,000 victims in ten minutes. The worm exploited the buffer overflow and would generate random IP addresses, send itself out to those addresses. If one of those addresses happens to belong to a host that is running an unpatched copy of Microsoft SQL Server Resolution Service, the host becomes infected and sprays the Internet with more copies of the worm. Lovesan worm A.K.A. MSBlast or Blaster Worm was a worm that spread to computers running Microsoft operating systems Windows XP and Windows 2000. The worm spread using a buffer overflow. This allowed the worm to spreads without the users opening attachments simply by spamming itself. The worm would display a two messages reading â€Å"I just want to say LOVE YOU SAN!!Soo much.† This message gave the worm the name Lovesan; the second message read â€Å"Billy Gates why do you make this possible ? Stop making money and fix your software!!†. Sasser worm affects computers running Microsoft operating systems Windows XP and Windows 2000. Sasser spreads through a vulnerable network port. It is particularly easy to spread without user intervention but is also easily stopped by a  properly configured firewall. The worm received the name Sasser because it would spread through a buffer overflow in the component known as LSASS(Local Security Authority Subsystem). References Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Code Red (computer worm) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Red_(computer_worm) IBM X-Force: Ahead of the Threat – Resources. advise118 . Retrieved from http://www.iss.net/threats/advise118.html Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. SQL Slammer – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Slammer Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Blaster (computer worm) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_(computer_worm) Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Sasser (computer worm) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasser_(computer_worm)