GSA Technology Council

The ECPI College of Technology is hosting an open house on National Career Education Day, Saturday, September 6th. Activities begin at 10 a.m. and continue to 3 p.m. at their Greenville campus just off Orchard Park Drive. Activities include campus tours, faculty demonstrations, free food and drinks, and a drawing for
a free A+ class. Call 864-288-2828.
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The Upstate Women in Technology will meet at noon on Thursday, September 11, 2003 at the Cityrange Grill in Greenville.  The meeting will feature a facilitated discussion on “Does IT Matter?” presented by Philip Yanov. Recent assaults on IT make keeping company and IT goals aligned more important than ever. The presentation will discuss those challenges and how IT professionals should react. Lunch is $10. Register by sending email to Meg Guice, meg.guice@acumenit.com or Jill Rose, rosej@acentron.com.
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CUPERTINO, Calif. – August 25, 2003 -Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), the world leader in Internet security, today announced the Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds line of consumer and enterprise solutions. These three products will protect Palm OS- and Microsoft Pocket PC-compatible devices against viruses, worms and other malicious code.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds will provide both real-time and on-demand scanning. In addition, Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds will also introduce LiveUpdate Wireless. This new feature will enable users with a wireless Internet connection to download virus definitions and Symantec product updates directly to their device over the Web.

The Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds line of consumer and enterprise solutions will include: Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Annual Service Edition, Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition, and Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition with Event and Configuration Manager. All three products are scheduled to be available for purchase in early September.

“As handheld devices are used in more homes and corporations, they make an increasingly attractive target platform for viruses and malicious code,” said Steve Cullen, senior vice president of Consumer and Client Product Delivery at Symantec. “Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds protects these devices which, in turn, strengthens overall home and enterprise security.”

According to Gartner Dataquest, more than 20 million handheld computers have been sold during the past five years. Many of them are connecting with enterprise systems at work, while being used during off-hours to surf the public Internet and casually connect with other compatible devices. Yet, industry experts estimate that virus protection is on only one percent of these devices; the remaining 99 percent are unprotected. This places both enterprise environments and homes at risk.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds will protect these handheld devices from viruses, worms, and other malicious threats. The product’s small footprint will fit unobtrusively in resource-constrained handheld devices and will also be easy to install. The software will be downloaded first on a desktop PC; application files for the Palm or Pocket PC will then be installed on the handheld device during the next synchronization.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds will provide real-time scans through Auto-Protect, which will run continuously and unobtrusively in the background. Auto-Protect will scan for viruses when files are downloaded and when email attachments are received. It will also run when a malicious program tries to execute. Automatic scans, in turn, will run after synchronizations as well as after expansion cards are inserted into the handheld device. On-demand scans will run at the user’s discretion. Symantec’s antivirus micro-engine will ensure fast and efficient virus scans.

Support for LiveUpdate will help ensure that handheld users have up-to-date protection against new threats. LiveUpdate will automatically download virus definition updates to the desktop and then transfer the updates to the handheld during the next synchronization. Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds will also include LiveUpdate Wireless, a new feature that will enable users to access device-specific virus definitions and product updates over a wireless connection.

Comprehensive logs will keep users updated on the status of their protection and on their antivirus product configuration. Users will be able to access a log of partial and full scans, found viruses, deleted and undeleted infected files, and a virus definition update history.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition
Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition will include additional functionality for enterprise environments. Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition will feature a desktop interface that resembles Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition in order to provide users a familiar and easy-to-use environment.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition will support additional scans. Users will be able to schedule scans to run daily, weekly, monthly, or on a specified date or to schedule scans in conjunction with desktop synchronizations. In addition, Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition will enable users who attach more than one handheld device to their PC to monitor those devices from the desktop.

To streamline the distribution of virus definition updates, virus definition packages for Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition will be seamlessly integrated with those of Symantec’s corporate desktop antivirus solutions. Desktops with Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition, in turn, will automatically pass only relevant virus definitions to the handheld device upon synchronization. By integrating with existing enterprise infrastructures, Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition will make it easier for organizations to maintain virus protection across all devices in the corporation.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition will also ease management by providing a centralized view of virus protection information. Comprehensive event reporting on virus activity, scan history, and other event history will be collected, transferred during synchronization, and reported through the history panel on the desktop.

Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition with Event and Configuration Manager
Symantec AntiVirus for Handhelds-Corporate Edition with Event and Configuration Manager will feature additional functionality for centralized logging, alerting, and reporting. With this product, the IT staff will be able to graphically view the status of all handhelds, make configuration changes, and enforce policies-all from a centralized console.

Status, configuration, and event information about the handheld environment will be collected at the desktop and reported to the management console. From there, it will be consolidated and presented to administrators. Administrators at the console will also be able to push configuration changes to all handhelds in the enterprise, regardless of location.

With centralized management, administrators will be able to set and lock certain functions on the handheld device. This feature will help IT administrators establish standard handheld configurations, enforce enterprise security policies, and comply with privacy and security regulations.

Software development company ProActive Technology, has anounced the spinoff creation of Vigilix LLC, a new company dedicated to the offering of detection and notification software products. ProActive Technology introduced the Vigilix product suite earlier this year. It is currently in operation in automotive manufacturing, educational institutions, utility cooperatives, and IT support organizations.

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According to an early report on CNet’s News.com, Intuit, maker of QuickBooks will soon be offering their own Customer Relationship Management (CRM) package.  The new package, named simply Customer Manager is primarily aimed at the 2.6 million existing users of Quickbooks. Priced at $79 the new system will compete with ACT, SalesForce.com, and Best Software.
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Symbol Technologies, Inc. has announced that the Microsoft will use Windows Mobile -based wireless PDAs from Symbol for attendee registration at Microsoft Sales and Marketing events around the world. The Symbol PPT 8900 units will be rolled out to Microsoft marketers worldwide over the next several weeks. This is the first implementation of the Symbol PPT 8800 with the newly released Windows Mobile 2003 software for Pocket PCs.
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The TechSoup website (www.techsoup.org) describes itself as a comprehensive source of technology information especially tailored to nonprofit organizations. TechSoup acts as a clearing house for donated software, hardware, networking, and services, making it possible for nonprofits to purchase these items at the lowest possible prices anywhere. The website also contains plenty of helpful articles that guide nonprofits through technology planning, finding consultants, or purchasing remanufactured hardware. They even offer their advice in weekly doses in the form of their email newsletter “by the cup.” For any nonprofit needing additional technology, TechSoup should be their first stop.

Borland Software has partnered with Spectrum Systems to provide their Application Lifecycle Management software to the federal government. According to market research firm Input, the Federal government will spend an estimated $5 billion on e-government iniatives by 2007. The duo is replacing the IBM-Rational offering that was previously under contract.
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Symantec has reported that it has upgraded the W32.Welchia.Worm to a “Category 4″ or “Severe” threat. Symantec reports that large enterprises are experiencing severe disruptions on their internal networks due to ICMP flooding. This can make some network resources inaccessible due to traffic overload.

The new worm adds insult to injury by specifically targeting computers previously infected with the W32.Blaster.Worm. Once it is on a system the W32.Welchia.Worm deletes msblast.exe, attempts to download the DCOM RPC patch from Microsoft’s Windows Update Web site, installs the patch, and then reboots the computer. While it may sound like the worm is actually an attempt to clean up the previous worm, it is actually acting as a denial of service attack, swamping networks with PING traffic.

Symantec strongly urges system administrators to ensure that patches have been applied to systems vulnerable to either the Microsoft Windows DCOM RPC Interface Buffer Overrun Vulnerability and Microsoft Windows WebDav Buffer Overflow Vulnerability.

They have posted a removal tool for W32.Welchia.Worm on the Symantec website.

Meetings: AGFA building on the second Thursday each month at 6:15 for a tutorial type meeting and at 7:00 PM for a general meeting.

Audience: Java Junkies.

Web Site: http://www.greenjug.org/index.jsp

Contact: Jose Ferrer, jose@pbsit.com