Congratulations! You are either the proud owner of a SBS box or
are thinking about having one installed in your office. You've
heard that it can allow file and printer sharing, Email, Internet
access, Group calendaring, modem sharing and even can host a web site.
But before you roll out that Internet site, it's best that you fully
understand the risks. Please consider the following:First let's
look at this graphic to identify your vulnerabilities [graphic courtesy
of Microsoft]
As you can see, there are two types of threats to your organization:
Human and Natural Disasters. Also notice that threats from
insiders and ignorant employees pose just as much of a threat as
outsiders like Crackers and Hackers. Ignorant employees can open
up emails that contain viruses that can erase files, harddrives, open up
back doors, etc. Insiders can maliciously delete files, or other
destructive behavior that can be very harmful to your server.
But we're here to talk about hosting a web site. The threat
from outside attacks is minimized best by not hosting a site inside your
server at all. There are many outsourced web hosting sites that
will easily and cheaply host your firm's web site.
A few of them can be found here. Some even offer SQL database
access. If you have a "static firm brochure style" of web site
that doesn't need a lot of dynamic updating, choose the outsourced web
hosting option. You can still have your ISP point your email to
your server [called MX records] while they host your web site. For
$20US a month or less, you can keep your port 80 closed up tight.

Keep it closed - don't host a site.
Why do you want to keep port 80 closed up? A port is like an
open window or door in your house. When you want to secure your
house, you don't leave the front door open do you? The same it
true for that port 80. The
number one attacked port on the web is port 80.
The top ten targeted
ports can be found here.
In July of last year,
Code Red, a
worm came into unprotected, unpatched servers that had port 80 open and
were running IIS. Guess what......SBS boxes with port 80 open were
prime targets for Code Red. Unsuspecting SBS box owners came and
found their boxes infected. Now the "big guy servers" with IIS on
a separate server just take that IIS server offline. But us
SBS'ers can't do that. Thus....understand carefully...when you
host your own website you are on the worm/hacking/virus frontlines.
YOU will be the ones telling the rest of us of the attacks that you are
being hit with. Code red required NO action by a server owner, all
that was needed was a running IIS server and an open port 80 to be
infected.
1.The "Code Red" worm attempts to connect
to TCP port 80 on a randomly chosen host assuming that a web server will
be found. Upon a successful connection to port 80, the attacking host
sends a crafted HTTP GET request to the victim, attempting to exploit a
buffer overflow in the Indexing Service described in CERT advisory
CA-2001-13
2.The same exploit (HTTP GET request) is sent to each of the randomly
chosen hosts due to the self-propagating nature of the worm. However,
depending on the configuration of the host which receives this request,
there are varied consequences.
IIS 4.0 and 5.0 servers with Indexing service installed will almost
certainly be compromised by the "Code Red" worm.
According to the SANS top 20 vunerabilities -
http://www.sans.org/top20.htm
"legitimate users and attackers
connect to systems via open ports. The more ports that are open the more
possible ways that someone can connect to your system. Therefore, it is
important to keep the least number of ports open on a system necessary
for it to function properly. All other ports must be closed." Please
visit that link for ways to test for open ports.
But keep in mind that any administrator who had
applied
MS 01-026 and
MS 01-033 security patches to your servers in May and June when they
were first released, you would have suffered no damaged and been fully
protected. Those who were not patched suffered damage to their
servers during a
short period of time.

If you MUST host a site.
If you must - for business purposes host your own
web site - try this recommendation from Steve Foster, SBS MVP:
"If you really want or need to host several
web sites on an IIS server, you'd be much better off building a separate
standalone Win2K Server server and placing it in front of the SBS
server. Your life will be so much easier, and you'll be able to sleep at
night :)"
It is preferable to separate that IIS away from your main box.
Again...the example from Code Red...if all of your eggs are in one
basket ...well you get the drift.
I have read
that when a vulnerability is announced through the Microsoft Security
bulletins you have 48 hours to patch your server before that
vulnerability begins to be exploited. Therefore, sign up to all
major security bulletins and patch yourself
within 48 hours.
Have a tape backup. Test that tape backup. Make full
nightly backups and have a good offsite rotation scheduel in place.
The recommended procedure for fully getting rid of Code Red on an
infected server is to reinstall.
Systems that have been compromised by this
worm should be removed from the network and the software and data
reinstalled as specified in the guidelines drafted by the CERT(r)
Coordination Center - available at
http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/win-UNIX-system_compromise.html.
Customers should apply the patch discussed in MS01-033 to the restored
system to prevent future vulnerability to this attack.
That's right....in order to remove Code Red from your server ....you
MUST reinstall that entire server. And if you have a mirrored
drive...that mirror is infected as well. Code Red is just an
example of the types of worms that are out on the Internet today.
These cyberattacks are not going to diminish.
Configuring alerts to notify
the administrator through email.:
http://www.isaserver.org/authors/magalhaes/tutorials/Configuring%20Alerts.htm
ISA Server Security Checklist
- Part 1: Securing the Operating System and the Interfaces:
http://www.isaserver.org/shinder/tutorials/isachecklist1.htm
ISA Server Security Checklist - Part 2 Securing the ISA Server
Configuration:
http://www.isaserver.org/shinder/tutorials/isachecklist2.htm

If you have to absolutely must host your Web
on your own SBS box
For all the reasons listed above and more...this is really NOT
recommended. But if you truly MUST or you are going to use it for
"play" purposes, then it would be my humble recommendations to become
very informed about the inner workings of ISA server and consider a
third party add on to fully track attacks in real time. I would also
become
proficient at hacking your own server to ensure what vulnerabilities
you do have. Mariette's tips regarding the
issues with OWA should be
reviewed along with the
IIS Lockdown tool, the
URL Scanning tool and every thing else mentioned in
Mariette Knap's SBS2000
security site. Also plan on changing your passwords often and
make them hard to "crack" by making them long and alphanumeric.

Some more links for information:
How to Maintain a Secure SBS
Installation:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q303323&GSSNB=1
SANS Newsletter Subscription:
http://server2.sans.org/sansnews
The Computer Security
Institute:
http://www.gocsi.com/
More security links:
http://www.gocsi.com/links/lore.html
Center for Internet Security:
http://www.cisecurity.org/banner.html
eEye Digital Security:
http://www.eeye.com/html/Research/Advisories/
SecurityFocus Corporate Site:
http://www.securityfocus.com/
Black Hat Briefings, Training
and Consulting Security home page:
http://www.blackhat.com/
PhreakNIC5:
http://www.phreaknic.org/
DEF CON:
http://www.defcon.org/
DEF CON:
http://www.defcon.org/book-list.html
.:[packet storm]:. - http://packetstormsecurity.org/:
http://packetstormsecurity.nl/
Hacking Exposed Windows 2000:
http://www.hackingexposed.com/win2k/home.html
Hacking Exposed Windows 2000 Links:
http://www.hackingexposed.com/win2k/links.html

Disclaimer: I am NOT an expert in Security, nor do I claim to
be one. I am an individual member of the Center for Internet
Security and subscribe to many of the newsletters listed. The
worst Security vulnerability is not understanding that you are
vulnerable. If you don't fully understand the risks, you are not
prepared to open yourself up to the risks.
Use all advice at your own risk.