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Geoffrey Chapman - Macrotone Blogs - Page 15

Macrotone Blogs

Macrotone blogs upon Joomla, our products and other matters.

An IT professional with a wide experience of IT systems, specialising in Database Management and Security.

High CPU usage MSE and QNAP QGet

We have noticed a problem since we installed KB2754296, which is an update to Microsoft Security Essentials where our CPU usage continually peaks at 100% usage.

Investigation reveals that the high usage is caused by process NisSrv.exe which is the Microsoft Network Realtime Inspection Service.

We use QNAP network devices and there is a small program called QGet which is used to contact the QNAP Download manager.  QGet runs on the PC and communicates with the QNAP process, and is used to provide the QNAP service with instruction as to what files to download.  When the QGet process is running the NisSRV.exe usage goes through the roof,slowing down the PC to a point where its is virtually unusable.

The version of QGet does not seem to matter and we have tested versions 2.1.5.0702 and 3.0.5.1009 and the result is the same.

The version of MSE is 4.1.5220 and in our installed version there is no way in which the Network inspection service can be disabled.

The only conclusion we can draw is that the two programs are incompatible.  We have disabled the QGet program, since it is not really used much anyway, but MSE should never cause the problem in the first place in our opinion.

Possibly we should consider an alternative security program over MSE!

See: QNAP Forum

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Firefox Upgrade offline due to Security Fears

firefox
The latest version of Mozilla's Firefox browser has been taken offline after a security vulnerability was discovered.

Users who had upgraded to version 16 were advised to downgrade to the previous safe release until Firefox developers released a fix.

The vulnerability allowed "a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited", Mozilla said.

BBC article.

Update: Mozilla re-released Firefox 16 today after pulling the browser from distribution Wednesday when one of its developers found a critical bug that could be used by attackers to hijack machines. At around 2:30 p.m. ET, Mozilla turned on its upgrade servers and started pushing Firefox 16.0.1 to users who had earlier downloaded the flawed browser, or who were still running version 15 and earlier.

Oracle announces MySql changes

oracle
At Oracle OpenWorld this week there were a few changes announced for MySql.  Oracle has issued an open source MySQL 5.6 release candidate.

Oracle issued its first MySQL 5.6 preview in July of 2011. For certain types of queries, there has been a performance gain of as much as 200 percent.

MySQL 5.6 includes sub-query optimizations that improve the query execution speeds. The underlying InnoDB storage engine has also been enhanced for throughput performance.

Under Oracle's guidance the number of new features per release has been cut down to be more manageable. While at the same time, there is more effort going into testing and overall quality.

From a release perspective, Oracle believe that users don't want to upgrade their databases often with big feature releases.  It is noted that Oracle has been coming out with a regular stream of maintenance releases though, as the 5.6 release is being developed. The current plan is for major new releases of MySQL every other year. That would place a MySQL 5.6 generally available release for early in 2013.

Oracle 12c - Pluggable databases.

oracle
Larry Ellison at the Oracle OpenWorld conference earlier this week, provided the information that the forthcoming Oracle Database 12c (the c standing for ‘cloud’) will  feature a radical new architecture called pluggable databases.

Currently a server running an Oracle database has an individual set of server processes.  Adding a second database to the server adds additional processes for the second database.  Pluggable databases will allow multiple databases to run under one copy, or instance, of the Oracle database software, a feature he called "multitenancy."

As the name implies, pluggable databases allow multiple tenant databases to run under one copy of Oracle 12c.  An arbitrary number of up to 250 user databases, can be run under the new architecture, and the architecture could probably support more. The new database is reportedly compatible with older Oracle databases.

This change in architecture brings a number of benefits that Oracle touted through the week, including improved efficiency, stronger security and easier upgrades.

However there are a few challenges for database administrators especially in the area of allocation computational resources. How will the new workload characteristics of running multiple databases on a single server be determined. The characteristics of the optimum size of a server, in reference to memory and storage space, may also/will need to be reconsidered.

Interesting times lay ahead.  Oracle Database 12c is set for availability in 2013.

Microsoft IE Bug


Microsoft has released details of a method users of Internet Explorer can use to secure their computers from a recently discovered exploit allowing malicious code to run on a PC.

Microsoft has admitted to the bug, which it says hurts Internet Explorer versions 6 through 9, but leaves IE 10 alone. The flaw is described as follows:

A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that Internet Explorer accesses an object that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated. The vulnerability may corrupt memory in a way that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user within Internet Explorer. An attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit this vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website.

The remedy is detailed in Security Advisory 2757760, where it says that there's no outright fix for the issue at present, but that users can work around the threat by deploying the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET), described as "... a utility that helps prevent vulnerabilities in software from successfully being exploited by applying in-box mitigations such as DEP to applications configured in EMET."

Web Site access blocked by Bad Behavior

I have written this blog after a recent incident when a legitimate user was trying to access our website. It is based on our experiences and that of other users of the software.

The user was obviously a little peeved but after working through the problem we obtained a resolution although there is still some doubt as to the exact cause.

Bad Behavior claims to be one of the Internet's most trusted solutions for helping to prevent link spam and other malicious activity, from well-known sites to the smallest blogs. Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place.

Users identified as being suspect are presented with a message that we configure such as "Your IP address is exhibiting behaviour similar to that of spammers, hackers or other undesirable visitors".

There are a reasonably comprehensive set of log entries and inspection of these often gives a clue as to why the user has been identified as ‘suspect’.

If the denied_reason says, “I know you and I don’t like you, dirty spammer,” then this means that the IP address has been previously identified and is being temporarily blocked, and another entry will have the real reason for the block.

One common denied_reason says, “Required header ‘Accept’ missing,”. In this situation the user should check to ensure that they are not using a proxy server, personal firewall, or any other software that may be interfering with their Web browsing. These types of software, if not configured properly, will cause this problem. Bypass the proxy (when possible) and try again.

If the denied_reason contains a long string of “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa,” says “User-Agent … prohibited,” or contains “Banned proxy server” and the user is not using a proxy server, this is an indication that the user’s computer has most likely been infected with a virus or Trojan horse which is sending comment and referrer spam. The computer should be cleaned before trying again.

If the denied_reason contains anything else, one may well find that the reason for the block is made obvious by the reason given. For instance, if there is a fake User-Agent string, Bad Behavior may detect this and cause the block. The solution In this case would be to correct the User-Agent string.

Website Anti-Spam


A recent comment requested some additional anti-spam option in our Issue Tracker component. That triggered much though on a topic that obviously impact all website and their components, be it blogs, commenting systems etc.

There are a number of different parts to preventing spam on a website and this is to expand upon our own particular take on the subject.

Spam is one of the many problem that face web sites today. It is basically the proverbial ‘pain in the neck’ and if not handled correctly can be very time consuming. How often have you viewed web sites where there are totally unrelated comments /registrations/ forums posts which has to make one think about the site’s reputation and credibility.

Our site is not immune to this problem and the source is not restricted to any specific country although there does seem to be a preponderance from locations such as Turkey, China, Russian Federation and more recently Ukraine and Brazil.

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New Releases Oracle SQL*Developer * SQL*Developer Modeller

Having been busy recently I nearly missed the recent announcement of Oracle SQL*Developer 3.2.0.09.30 and SQL*Developer Data Modeller 3.1.2 (704).

Both available on Oracle Technet.

Oracle Goldengate


I was talking with a colleague the other day about Oracle Goldengate and it was strange that I saw this article which describes the recent release. Having used the product and its ‘relation’ Streams, it was interesting to catch up on the recent changes.

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Reuters News Agency hacked -- AGAIN


News agency Reuters has been hacked for the third time in a month. This is beginning to become a habit. If this continues one must begin to wonder how much reliance one can place in any of their articles.

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