Over 500,000 Hoax Emails Cripple Solicitors IT Systems Across Dublin for 3 Days
Hoax propagation caused by companies not having best practise builds in place and a lack of proactive monitoring. This accident proves the importance of best practise IT set-up and highlights the vulnerability for all companies, large and small, when patches are not kept up-to-date.
DUBLIN, Ireland (PRWEB) December 11, 2005 -- Hundreds of solicitors in Dublin were this week crippled when 5 rogue severs flooded out over 500,000 emails to fellow solicitors. This problem was the result of improper server configuration, causing massive disruption. This accident proves the importance of best practise IT set-up and highlights the vulnerability for all companies, large and small, when patches are not kept up-to-date.
The source of the problem was innocent enough. An email marketing was sent by a local publishing company to their mailing list of solicitors. However, when they replied to the email, a flaw within the configuration of their server caused the solicitor’s Microsoft Small Business Server to send the original email to their entire email database tens of thousands of times. As a result, over 500,000 emails clogged up the inbox’s of the solicitors, crashing mail servers, as well as causing huge embarrassment to these firms.
The origin of the email propagation was incorrectly configured servers. None of the solicitors causing the "mail bombing" had installed the particular configuration recommended by Microsoft.
"Although none of Enclave Technologies clients were affected by this problem, our network operations centre picked up unusual email activity on Tuesday morning. We were quickly able to trace servers that were causing the problem and alert the firms involved. Our priority then was to furnish the IT Support companies who looked after these servers with the knowledge to halt this spread of email." explained Jane Reid, Network Manager, Enclave Technologies. "Preventing the accidental propagation required the implementation of the Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) patches KB886208 and KB835734. We would advise any company running Microsoft Small Business Server to ensure these patches are installed to prevent against this problem”
The lessons to be learnt are:
| | - All companies are vulnerable if they do not keep on top of the latest software releases,
- Configuration for hardware and software installations must be kept up-to-date and best practise be followed at all times
- Firewall, anti-spam and anti-virus solutions are an absolute necessity, but this is not enough.
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"Solicitors and other professional services firm’s absolute focus is their clients and it should not have to be their IT infrastructure" said Reid. "We believe that companies who do not have their own internal IT capability can prevent this sort of accident in the future by ensuring their IT maintenance and support provider keep on top of best practise and the latest updates”.
For more information contact Jane Reid on 01 231 5444 or Colin Lewis on 087 237 5403
About Enclave Technologies
Enclave Technologies delivers the skill sets and technologies required to run your infrastructure. We provide a range of solutions from Managed IT Service for small to medium sized businesses, to a custom consulting service that provides complete tailor-made turnkey solutions. Our customers include online fast-growth businesses, professional service organisations and financial houses. Enclave Technologies is based in Dublin, Ireland. For additional information about Enclave, visit our web site at http://www.enclave.ie.
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