In August 2003, the MS Blaster worm got through a known security loophole in Microsoft Windows and attacked millions of computers around the world, resulting in an enormous economic loss. Actually, this disaster could have been avoided if users had applied the security patch MS03-026 released a few ...

Everyday, when you are working with your PC in your office drawing up important documents, and utilizing resources offered by the campus network, have you ever wondered if your data is 100% safe or whether there is protection of any sort to prevent intrusion from outsiders? In order to untangle some ...

Network security is of great importance when information exchange is concerned. For public machines like the Express Terminals that are easily reached by outsiders, system logon is a must to safeguard the users, and that was why it was introduced several years ago. However, it seems that this ...

Quite a number of University PCs were infected by the recent outbreaks of the viruses/worms, viz. MS Blaster, W32/Welchia (or W32/Nachi) and Sobig-F. The University not only acquires sufficient licenses for the Windows, MS-Office, and McAfee anti-virus software but also frequently promotes user ...

The proliferation of virus is a common headache to the computer as well as Internet users, causing billions of dollars lost each year. As viruses nowadays turn trickier, there is no single cure to stop it from spreading feverishly. However, this does not mean there is nothing that we can do to ...

Password is a very important piece of information for any computing user. Together with your username, it gives you access to all computing services on the campus network. Every time you connect, you must provide the magic word. When the password has been leaked to an illegal person, he/she can ...

The anti-virus software (Mcafee) has been made available centrally for every PC on staff LAN. Users are regularly informed to update their anti-virus signature file (a file used by anti-virus software to detect the presence of any known viruses). However, for some reasons, almost everyday some staff ...

In the past few months, thanks to departments' cooperation, the Computing Services Centre (CSC) has successfully completed the registration of IP addresses and network cards used on the campus network. This information can help the CSC rectify problems and notify the victim users more quickly. In ...

Those computers on the campus network with invalid network connection registration information on MAC/IP addresses, users' names, user locations, etc or with no registration at all are like illegal residents in the University cyber-community. Some are using unauthorized or other users' IP addresses ...

Early in the morning of 20 September 2001 when I came into the office and switched on the PC as usual, the screen was appearing funny and small windows kept popping up as if they were saying hello to me. While I was wide at sea about what had happened, a neighbouring colleague came to my rescue and ...