The official Shavlik Technologies blog where our employees share their views on the market, industry trends and where we highlight company and product announcements.
I found an interesting blog post by industry veteran Don Jones for Redmond Magazine that I wanted to share. It leads well into our recent ITScripts Catalog update. Mr. Jones talks about a recent survey he performed on how much emphasis was placed on scripting (specifically with PowerShell) for different IT job titles. Of the 600 respondents 80 percent require PowerShell in some, if not all, positions within IT. None of the job titles were specific to PowerShell Scripter either, so it is an indication that this is one of many skills expected of IT Admins.
The survey also found …
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In a recent blog post by Farzana Rahman, Microsoft’s group program manager of the Windows Update group, she wrote that Microsoft has no plans to support third party patching now or in the future. She writes:
Lastly but not the least, I want to address the feedback from users who would like WU to update their 3rd-party applications. People clearly find the experience with multiple updaters on the system less than optimal (and we agree!) Each application updater gives you a different experience, you have to remember to go visit each updater to install updates, you never know when or …
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We are excited to announce that we are currently in the process of getting the beta of NetChk Protect 8.0 set up. The first round of the beta will be a closed beta. We have a couple hundred customers that we will be inviting to the beta, but we will only be able to accept a limited number of customers to begin with, so if you want a guaranteed spot, contact us as soon as possible at Shavlik-beta@vmware.com. The customers on the invite list are those with a support issue resolved by 8.0, customers who submitted a feature request …
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With the August 2011 edition of Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has just released 13 bulletins addressing 22 vulnerabilities. This month marks a “heavy” month for Microsoft for Patch Tuesday.
The first bulletin administrators should look at patching first is the bi-monthly cumulative update for Microsoft Internet Explorer (MS11-057). This bulletin addresses typical vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer where browsing to a malicious website could result in remote code execution. Two of the seven vulnerabilities fixed with this bulletin are publicly known. At this time, Microsoft has not received any reports of attacks against the vulnerabilities. With any publicly disclosed …
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Shavlik Technologies, now part of VMware, recently extended our bundle promotion of up to 80 percent off of SimplexITy. Customers around the world have been taking advantage of this value-packed offer that includes Shavlik’s market-leading patch management, configuration management, antivirus protection, and power management technologies.
By bringing together this comprehensive solution, Shavlik is helping to reduce the costs and complexity of IT administration allowing our customers to spend less time worrying about security and compliance and more time to focus on strategic value to their business and their customers.
The SimplexITy bundle delivers the following solutions at a fraction of the …
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Read any computer security report today and it will offer the same conclusion: patching – of both operating systems and applications – is the fundamental effort that any organization should undertake to improve its security profile. In order to minimize exposure to vulnerabilities to the fullest extent, an IT department should patch Microsoft applications and operating systems, legacy and third party applications.
However, for IT managers that use Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), the cost and effort to include these legacy and third party applications in the SCCM infrastructure can be prohibitive. Microsoft provides System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) so SCCM …
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Don’t be intimidated out of making changes to your computer that improve your security and reduce the risk to vulnerabilities. An interesting phenomenon of antivirus software is the real time scanning it provides. Recently my laptop hardware was upgraded and it required me to install a new video driver to support the enhanced graphics built into the onboard chipset. I was faithfully scanning my laptop for the latest patches and service pack support as well as checking that the drivers were current for the hardware. The video driver vendor insisted there was an available upgrade and I immediately tried to …
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Microsoft has just released their advanced notification for the July 2011 edition of Patch Tuesday. Microsoft is planning to release 4 security bulletins addressing 22 vulnerabilities.
Security Bulletin Breakdown:
1 bulletin is rated Critical
3 bulletins are rated Important
2 vulnerabilities can lead to Remote Code Execution
2 vulnerabilities can lead to Elevation of Privilege
Affected Products:
All supported Microsoft operating systems
Microsoft Visio 2003
Although this is a ‘light’ Patch Tuesday month, it is important to keep an eye out for any non-Microsoft vendors releasing new updates.
We will be going through each bulletin thoroughly next Wednesday, July 13th at 11:00am CDT in part of our monthly …
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One of the most important aspects of any IT administrator’s position these days is the ability to accurately patch their respective networks to avoid the potential for risk. That said, many organizations today perform regularly scheduled patch updates…however, not without difficulty!
A majority of the world’s IT professionals today leverage Microsoft’s Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) patching technology. While it does a fairly decent job with Microsoft applications, it falls short in its ability to address the ever-expanding challenges with patching non-Microsoft applications.
The challenge is that many IT administrators, especially in small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), have so much on their plate that it’s hard to …
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Well, this is new. Yesterday, Lulz Security and Anonymous, two of the premiere hacking groups, have announced that they are teaming up in an effort they are calling “Operation: Anti-Security” or “AntiSec” for short. (For all of you that follow news on twitter the hashtag #AntiSec will be the one of note).
To quote yesterday’s release by LulzSec (http://pastebin.com/9KyA0E5v):
Welcome to Operation Anti-Security (#AntiSec) – we encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path. We fully endorse the flaunting of the word “AntiSec” on any government website defacement or …
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