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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Enterprise Rollout and Management of Firefox

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=== CONTENTS ===================================================

IN FOCUS: Enterprise Rollout and Management of Firefox

NEWS AND FEATURES
- nCircle Reconfigures Itself with Acquisition of Cambia Security
- New Microsoft Tool Strips Exploits Out of Office Documents
- Recent Security Vulnerabilities

GIVE AND TAKE
- Security Matters Blog: Yet Another Virus-Writing Class; Wordpress
and Opera Have Vulnerabilities
- FAQ: Fix File Access Problems After Upgrading to Vista
- From the Forum: Controlling Access to a Data Repository on a
Cluster
- Product Evaluations from the Real World
- Share Your Security Tips

PRODUCTS
- Internet Appliance Adds Reputation Scoring

RESOURCES AND EVENTS

FEATURED WHITE PAPER

ANNOUNCEMENTS


=== SPONSOR: CA XO Soft ========================================

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checklist that you can use to help guide your Exchange 2000/2003/2007
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=== IN FOCUS: Enterprise Rollout and Management of Firefox =====
by Mark Joseph Edwards, News Editor, mark at ntsecurity / net

I'm sure many of you use Mozilla Firefox at least part of the time.
Keeping the browser updated and configured in a secure manner on a few
systems isn't a lot of work. On the other hand, trying to use Firefox
with more than a dozen computers soon becomes a real chore. Installing
Firefox on desktops one by one takes plenty of time. Checking desktops
to make sure the latest updates are loaded is also time consuming, as
is making sure that people don't reconfigure the browser to use
settings and plug-ins that you don't want used.

Did you know that rather than manually performing rollouts and
management, you can use Windows Installer, Group Policy, and Active
Directory (AD) to help automate these tasks? To push out Firefox with
Windows Installer, you of course need to have properly prepared MSI
package files, and to manage configurations, you need Firefox to
interact with AD. I found a company that has a solution to both
problems.

FrontMotion maintains a Web-based tool, Firefox Packaging Service (at
the URL below), that lets you package your choice of the last three
releases of Firefox along with up to 10 plug-ins from a list of 17. The
site will then build an MSI package that you can download to use for
your rollout or upgrade process. Use of the service costs $150 per
year, and that price gives you the ability to build packages as often
as you need to.

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FrontMotion also makes available its free FrontMotion Firefox Community
Edition (at the URL below), which is based on the latest version of
Firefox and has the capability of interacting with AD and Group Policy.
So you can choose to use Firefox Community Edition to build your
package, or if you don't need AD integration, you can choose a standard
version of Firefox.

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Firefox Community Edition not only integrates with AD, it also gives
you the ability to control the desktop icon as well as shell
integration, similar to the way Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)
integrates with the shell. It also can be set to be the default
browser, handles uninstallation if you need that, comes with Adobe
Flash Player pre-installed, and more.

So with Firefox Community Edition, you can easily use AD and Group
Policy to handle rollout and configuration, and tools from other third
parties accomplish similar tasks. Dion Liddell makes a tool called
WetDog (at the URL below) that lets you control configuration of both
Mozilla and Firefox by using Group Policy in AD. WetDog comes with an
executable file that you put on your domain controllers (DCs) and
insert into user logon scripts.

http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=57FE6:4160B336D0B60CB1A285C2CE17CEE286

Bob Templeton developed a tool, FFDeploy, that lets you build a package
for rolling out Firefox. Development of the tool appears to have
stopped back in 2005, but the tool is written in Visual Basic, so you
could modify it if it doesn't suit your needs.

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And last but not least, Mark Sammons made a tool called FirefoxADM that
helps you integrate and control Firefox by using Group Policy.

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=== SECURITY NEWS AND FEATURES =================================

nCircle Reconfigures Itself with Acquisition of Cambia Security
Cambia CM, an agentless configuration auditing tool, will be
integrated with nCircle products through consolidated reporting.

http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=57FDB:4160B336D0B60CB1A285C2CE17CEE286

New Microsoft Tool Strips Exploits Out of Office Documents
Microsoft released its new Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion
Environment (MOICE), which converts Office 2003's binary format files
into the more secure Office Open XML format used by Office 2007.

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Recent Security Vulnerabilities
If you subscribe to this newsletter, you also receive Security
Alerts, which inform you about recently discovered security
vulnerabilities. You can also find information about these
discoveries at

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=== SPONSOR: Symantec ==========================================

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business and any organization should plan for the appropriate message
hygiene, availability, and control services from the start. This eBook
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them in a Microsoft-centric mail and messaging environment. Download
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=== GIVE AND TAKE ==============================================

SECURITY MATTERS BLOG: Yet Another Virus-Writing Class; Wordpress and
Opera Have Vulnerabilities
by Mark Joseph Edwards, http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=57FE2:4160B336D0B60CB1A285C2CE17CEE286

Another university is reportedly going to begin offering a virus-
writing class. What's the purpose of such a class? Also, have you
upgraded to Wordpress 2.2 and Opera 9.21 yet? If not, your system
running these applications is exposed to potentially dangerous security
risks.

http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=57FD2:4160B336D0B60CB1A285C2CE17CEE286

FAQ: Fix File Access Problems After Upgrading to Vista
by John Savill, http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=57FDF:4160B336D0B60CB1A285C2CE17CEE286


Q: For some reason, I can't access certain files on my Windows Vista
machine following an upgrade. How can I get to them?

Find the answer at

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FROM THE FORUM: Controlling Access to a Data Repository on a Cluster
A forum participant is building a repository on a server cluster to
store all of the company's secure documents. The company will have
customers from various locations accessing the repository. He wonders
how to control access so that no information is leaked to people not
authorized to access the repository and its files.

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=== PRODUCTS ===================================================
by Renee Munshi, products@windowsitpro.com

Internet Appliance Adds Reputation Scoring
Secure Computing announced SnapGear with TrustedSource, a new
version of its Internet appliance for small-to-midsized businesses
(SMBs). SnapGear provides networking, firewall, intrusion prevention,
and VPN services. TrustedSource provides behavior-based reputation
scores for IPs, domains, URLs, and email messages so that organizations
can drop connections from malicious sources at the gateway. SnapGear
with TrustedSource also delivers enhanced VoIP capabilities, VPN
offloading, connection tracking snapshots, and improved performance.
For a limited time, all SnapGear customers can receive a six-month
trial license for SnapGear with TrustedSource for free. SnapGear
appliances start at $249. For more information, go to

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=== RESOURCES AND EVENTS =======================================
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How do you manage security vulnerabilities? If you depend on
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Examine the threats of allowing unwanted or offensive content into your
network and learn about the technologies and methodologies to defend
against inappropriate content, spyware, IM, and P2P in this white paper
report.

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Forefront, and more--with experts from Microsoft and world-renowned
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=== FEATURED WHITE PAPER =======================================

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Kline shows the value and viability of SQL Server 2005 through the
results of benchmarking tests. This paper also offers advice to help
you assess the business value of an upgrade and ensure that you
properly benchmark and load test your upgrade.

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=== ANNOUNCEMENTS ==============================================

Introducing a Unique Security Resource
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