MS patch-scanner for Win-NT, 2K, IIS, SQL

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/21019.html

MS patch-scanner for Win-NT, 2K, IIS, SQL
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 15/08/2001 at 06:07 GMT

We've been eager to spill the beans about this for weeks, and even
hinted at it in a previous story...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/20960.html

Today it's official; MS has released a command-line application,
HFNetChk, which will scan all NT and/or 2K machines in a network from
a single location and compare their currently-installed patches with
the latest ones available, making it easy for admins to identify and
patch vulnerable machines.

We gave it a whirl over the weekend and it performed as advertised. It
covers Win-NT and 2K; IIS 4.0 and 5.0; SQL Server 7.0 and 2000
(including MS Data Engine); and Internet Explorer 5.01 and later.

The tool accesses an XML file, which it downloads automatically, and
which contains information such as the files in each patch and their
file versions and checksums, registry keys that would be applied by
the hotfix, information about which patches supersede others, related
Microsoft Knowledge Base article numbers, and the like.

If any of the file or registry details on a scanned machine don't
match the information in the XML file, the associated security patch
is identified as not installed and the results are displayed on the
screen. The corresponding Knowledge Base article number is also
displayed.

Switches can be used specify groups of computers to scan, output
format, engine speed, types of checks, the location of the XML file
and so on, according to the complete instructions, which should be
available from MS later today.

Related Links:

The progie:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/win2000platform/Utility/2.1/NT45/EN-U
S/nshc.exe

The instructions (note, going live some time Wednesday):
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q303/2/15.asp



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