[Info-vax] "Shanghai Stock Exchange" and OpenVMS

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Jan 22, 12:35 pm, "Main, Kerry" <Kerry.M... at hp.com> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: info-vax-boun... at rbnsn.com [mailto:info-vax-boun... at rbnsn.com] On
> > Behalf Of koeh... at spock.koehler.athome.net
> > Sent: January 21, 2009 3:47 PM
> > To: info-... at rbnsn.com
> > Subject: Re: [Info-vax] "Shanghai Stock Exchange" and OpenVMS
>
> > In article <6thdpsFb03n... at mid.individual.net>, billg... at cs.uofs.edu
> > (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>
> > > How many tmes you going to trot out this same tired story.  Getting
> > hit with
> > > a virus is not as much a OS or system problem as it is a user
> > problem.
>
> >    Which is why we get hit with virii on VMS every day?
>
> >    Seriously, heavily trained Windows admins have not been able to
> > protect
> >    our Windows systems.  Not if they're plugged in and turned on.
>
> > _______________________________________________
>
> Yep - most people who have not had to be a Wintel SysAdmin in a large
> company do not realize what an almost impossible job they have:
>
> - they are the first to be blamed when one of the many new Trojans,
> Viruses, worms etc infects their company systems or desktops
>
> - most large companies using Wintel literally have hundreds of small
> X86 systems all over the company in not only data centers, but under
> desks, closets etc.
>
> - Microsoft releases 5-20 new security patches every month on "patch
> Tues"
>
> - their mission critical Wintel App's requires App testing before
> rolling out any OS patches, so for these systems, inevitably they are
> forced to only roll out new patches at best once/quarter. If a virus
> does hit, see point #1.
>
> - they do not have control of what runs on many internal systems e.g.
> Dev/QA other than maybe backups. Hence, they do not know what specific
> services or apps these systems might be running.
>
> - their Sales/Marketing/Mgrs users love to use their new Windows OS
> PDA's at home, airports and conferences, then plug them directly into
> the internal work wireless LAN's and desk PC's. These PDA's are simply
> just another unprotected Windows OS floating around the company.
>
> - their end users often leave their desktops powered off at night to
> be "green" friendly, but scream like crazy when a AV scan is done on
> their PC during the day
>
> - Microsoft releases 5-20 new security patches every month on "patch
> Tues" [did I mention that already :-)]
>
> - See point #1
>
> Regards
>
> Kerry Main
> Senior Consultant
> HP Services Canada
> Voice: 613-254-8911
> Fax: 613-591-4477
> kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
> (remove the DOT's and AT)
>
> OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

Quite. Here's an example applicable to kit in millions of factories
around the world, and similar logic applies to kit in hospitals,
laboratories, etc.

A piece of smart kit (eg a PLC) needs reconfiguring or reprogramming.
The contractor comes in with his PC (Windows) based programmer. The IT
folk say "no external kit on our network", but that's not much
defence. The PLC people say "we need a copy of the updated PLC
program". There's no network, so the program is transferred from the
Window box to the corporate LAN  by USB stick, and (of course) so is
the virus.

For PLC programmer in factory, see also a Windows-powered logic
analyzer in electronics lab, or a whole variety of kit which doesn't
look like "a PC" and is nothing to do with the IT Department but is
just as capable of being a virus propagation vector.