Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private> http://www.kinston.com/Details.cfm?StoryID=7749 [Ohhh, yeah, someone needs to point out to the folks in Greene County, North Carolina Marcus Ranum's idea of a 100% secure firewall http://www.ranum.com/pubs/a1fwall/ :) - WK] By Sandy Wall Sandy_Wallat_private Staff Writer 12/19/2002 SNOW HILL - Greene County officials hope a newly installed "firewall" will prevent hackers from again disabling the county's computer system. An unidentified hacker tapped into the county's e-mail server last week and wreaked havoc on the system, causing e-mail to arrive in French and German, and eventually crashing the system. "Nothing was ruined, and we didn't lose anything," said County Manager E. Lee Worsley Jr., who said several county employees use the e-mail system to do their jobs. Greene officials, with the assistance of a computer service contractor, were able to remedy the problem on their own. Led by county systems manager Lisa Artis, the group installed a "firewall," which is a software device that makes it difficult for unauthorized users to tap into a computer system. The repairs were completed last week. By this week, the e-mail system was working again. Cost of the repairs was estimated at $700. "I didn't let the e-mail go back up until the firewall was installed," Worsley said. He said the system was working well, but also acknowledged that it's difficult to prevent all conceivable hacker attacks. *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ================================================================ C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org *==============================================================* - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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