Exchange 2000/2003 RUS not updating certain objects?

SYMPTOMS

You may not be able to log on to or resolve the name of a specific user's or administrator's Exchange 2000 Server or Exchange Server 2003 mailbox. However, you may notice that the Exchange mailbox object appears in the Exchange System Manager console. If you use the Update Now option of the Recipient Update Service, the users are still not stamped with e-mail addresses from your Recipient Policy.

CAUSE

Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 use the Recipient Update Service to assign e-mail addresses to mail-enabled objects. E-mail addresses are just one of many attributes that the Recipient Update Service manages updates for. This issue can occur when the Recipient Update Service does not have the necessary access permissions to update the objects. The "Resolution" section describes four possible scenarios that can cause this behavior and it explains how to address each scenario.

RESOLUTION

Scenario 1: Administrator or user of built-in Active Directory security group name or log on does not resolve

This behavior may occur with the Administrator account and with users or groups that are members of the following Active Directory security groups:

• Schema Administrators
• Domain Administrators
• Enterprise Administrators

The following event may appear in the Event Viewer Application log:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeAL
Event Category: Replication
Event ID: 8315
Description: The service could not update the entry 'CN=UserName,CN=Users,DC=domain,DC=com' because inheritable permissions are not propagated to this object. The inheritable permissions may be disabled because the object belongs to a Windows 2000 administrative group or the inheritable permissions were disabled explicitly by an administrator. DC=ServerDC1,DC=domain,DC=com.

Cause

The Administrator account and the accounts that are members of the Active Directory security groups that are listed do not have the Allow inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object check box selected. This check box is located on the Security tab for the user or group object. This tab is displayed when Advanced Features is enabled on the Active Directory Users and Computers management console. If you select this check box, a Microsoft Windows system task clears the check box automatically.

This behavior is by design. This system task prevents security issues that may occur that stem from "elevation of privilege" attacks. For example, Group X is a member of the Domain Administrators security group. If the Access Control List (ACL) on Group X indicates that Group Y can modify the Group X object, members of Group Y may make themselves members of Group X. Transitively, they may become members of the Domain Administrators security group. We recommend that you do not use accounts with administrative permissions to perform mailbox-related tasks.

Resolution

To access mailboxes or perform mailbox-related tasks, use Active Directory accounts that do not have administrative permissions.

Scenario 2: Inheritable permissions from parent are not propagated to object

The Recipient Update Service does not have the necessary permissions to an Active Directory organizational unit that accounts reside in. The following events may appear in the Event Viewer Application log:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeAL
Event Category: Replication
Event ID: 8315
Description: The service could not update the entry 'CN=UserNameB,CN=CustomOrgUnit,DC=domain,DC=com' because inheritable permissions are not propagated to this object. The inheritable permissions may be disabled because the object belongs to a Windows 2000 administrative group or the inheritable permissions were disabled explicitly by an administrator. DC=ServerDC1,DC=domain,DC=com.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeAL
Event Category: LDAP Operations
Event ID: 8270
Description: LDAP returned the error [32] Insufficient Rights when importing the transaction dn: changetype: Modify showInAddressBook:add:CN=All Users,CN=All Address Lists,CN=Address Lists Container,CN= ... : CN=Default Global Address List,CN=All Global Address Lists,CN=Address Lists
mail:User_Name@domain.com
textEncodedORAddress:c=us;a= ;p=Org;o=Site;s=LastName;g=FirstName;
proxyAddresses:SMTP:UserNameB@domain.com : X400:c=us;a= ;p=Org;o=Site;s=LastName;g=FirstName; : smtp:UserNameB@domain.com
msExchPoliciesIncluded:add:{D1D8C0C6-D450-4CD7-8F35-1F5A42C49C1C},{26491CFC-9E50-4857-861B-0CB8DF22B5D7}
msExchUserAccountControl:0
msExchALObjectVersion:52
objectGUID:1631A14EC051DF4C87260F7AE8212AE6
-
DC=domain,DC=com

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeAL
Event Category: LDAP Operations
Event ID: 8022
Description: LDAP Modify on directory .domain.com for entry '' was unsuccessful with error:[0x32] Insufficient Rights [ 00002098: SecErr: DSID-03150646, problem 4003
(INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0
].
DC=domain,DC=com

If you enable the MSExchangeAL diagnostic logging, you may see the following event in the Event Viewer Application log:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeAL
Event Category: Replication
Event ID: 8316
Description: The service could not update the entry 'CN=UserNameB,CN=CustomOrgUnit,DC=domain,DC=com' because inheritable permissions have been explicitly disabled to all objects in the container 'OU=CustomOrgUnit,DC=domain,DC=com'. For this object to be mail-enabled properly, you will need to enable inheritable permissions on the security tab for this container so that the permissions can be propagated correctly to the entry that the service is trying to process.

Cause

This behavior may occur if you disabled the Allow inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object check box on the Active Directory organizational unit that the accounts reside in.

Resolution

Use either the Active Directory Users and Computers management console or use Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) Edit to re-establish inheritable permissions on the organizational unit.

In Active Directory Users and Computers

1. In Active Directory Users and Computers on the View menu, click Advanced Features.
2. Right-click the container or organizational unit that contains the users who are not being stamped by the Recipient Update Service, and then click Properties.
3. On the Security tab, verify that the Allow inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object check box is selected. This options adds Exchange Enterprise Servers to the list of accounts that have rights to that object.
4. Verify that this box is selected at the container level, and also in the user properties. To select the properties for individual users, right-click the user, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.

In ADSI Edit

Warning If you use the ADSI Edit snap-in, the LDP utility, or any other LDAP version 3 client and you incorrectly modify the attributes of Active Directory objects, you can cause serious problems that require that you reinstall Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Exchange. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect modification of Active Directory object attributes can be solved. Modify these attributes at your own risk.

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Windows 2000 Support Tools, and then click ADSI Edit.
2. In ADSI Edit, expand the domain tree, and then expand the organizational unit or container in which the user that is not getting stamped resides.
3. Right-click the container or organizational unit, and then click Properties.
4. On the Security tab, verify that the Allow inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object check box is selected. This option adds Exchange Enterprise Servers to the list of accounts that have rights to that object.
5. Verify that this box is selected on all the individual users within that container. If Exchange Enterprise Servers do not have correct rights, the Recipient Update Service will not stamp the mailboxes. To select the properties of the individual users, right-click the user, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.
6. Open the Exchange System Manager (ESM), expand Recipients, and then click Recipient Update Service.
7. Right-click the Recipient Update Service for the domain where these users are located, and then click Update Now. The Recipient Update Service should now have sufficient rights to stamp these objects.

Scenario 3: Exchange Enterprise Servers group is missing required permissions

The Exchange Enterprise Servers group may not have the required permissions at the domain level. The Event Viewer Application log may show the following events:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeAL
Event Category: Replication
Event ID: 8317
Description: The service could not update the entry 'CN=UserName,CN=Users,DC=domain,DC=com' because inheritable permissions may not have propagated completely down to this object yet. The inheritance time may vary depending on the number of Active Directory objects within the domain and also the load of your domain controllers. To correct this problem, verify that the Exchange permissions have been propagated to this object and then force a rebuild for the Recipient Update Service on this domain.
DC=domain,DC=com

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeAL
Event Category: LDAP Operations
Event ID: 8270
Description: LDAP returned the error [10000001] Local Error when importing the transaction dn: changetype: Modify showInAddressBook:add:CN=All Users,CN=All Address Lists,CN=Address Lists Container,CN= ... : CN=Default Global Address List,CN=All Global Address Lists,CN=Address Lists
mail:User_Name@domain.com
textEncodedORAddress:c=us;a= ;p=Org;o=Site;s=LastName;g=FirstName;
msExchPoliciesIncluded:add:{D1D8C0C6-D450-4CD7-8F35-1F5A42C49C1C},{26491CFC-9E50-4857-861B-0CB8DF22B5D7}
msExchUserAccountControl:0
msExchALObjectVersion:52
objectGUID:1631A14EC051DF4C87260F7AE8212AE6
-
DC=domain,DC=com

Cause

The permissions may have been modified or removed without knowing how it would affect Microsoft Exchange and the Recipient Update Service.

Resolution

To verify that the permissions for the Exchange Enterprise Servers group are missing at the domain level, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click Active Directory Users and Computers.
2. On the View menu, click Advanced Features.
3. Right-click the domain, and then click Properties.
4. Click the Security tab, and then click Advanced.

There are several permissions for Exchange Enterprise Groups at the domain level. These permissions include four write permissions. If some of the write permissions are missing, it is very likely that the MSExchangeAL 8270 and 8317 events that were discussed earlier will be logged in the Event Viewer Application log. If all the write permissions are missing, there may not be any errors logged.

To reset the permissions for the Exchange Enterprise Servers group if they are missing, follow these steps:

1. Insert your Exchange 2000 Server or Exchange Server 2003 CD-ROM into the CD Drive.
2. Click Start, click Run, type

   :\I386\Setup.exe /domainprep

   in the Open box, and then press ENTER.
   
   refers to the drive letter of your CD Drive. When you run Setup with the /domainprep switch, you restore default permissions for the Exchange Enterprise Servers group.
3. To rebuild the Recipient Update Services, follow these steps:
   1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click Exchange System Manager.
   2. Double-click Recipients, and then click Recipient Update Services.
   3. Right-click each Recipient Update Service listed in the right pane, and then click Rebuild.

Note We do not suggested that you rebuild the Recipient Update Service here for the following reasons:

1. When you click Rebuild, the Recipient Update Service starts over from a uSNChanged value of 1 and queries for all objects in the domain. In a large domain, it may take many hours or many days for the Recipient Update Service to process all the objects in the domain.
2. Repeatedly performing a rebuild operation on the Recipient Update Service may make the troubleshooting process more difficult. Therefore, instead of repeatedly performing a rebuild operation on the Recipient Update Service, you can view the events that the Recipient Update Service generates to determine where the Recipient Update Service problem exists.

Scenario 4: Group has the hideDLMembership attribute set to True

In this scenario, you may see the following event in the Event Viewer Application log:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeAL
Event Category: Replication
Event ID: 8315
Description: The service could not update the entry 'CN=UserName,CN=Users,DC=domain,DC=com' because inheritable permissions are not propagated to this object. The inheritable permissions may be disabled because the object belongs to a Windows 2000 administrative group or the inheritable permissions were disabled explicitly by an administrator. DC=ServerDC1,DC=domain,DC=com.

How to change display names of Active Directory users

When a new user is created in Active Directory, the Full name field is always generated in FirstName LastName format. In turn, this field sets the Display Name field on creation, therefore, you end up with a FirstName LastName formatted global address list.
You can make this change by using the Adsiedit utility. Adsiedit not only changes the default way the Display Name field is built, but also the Full Name (that is, the "cn") field, therefore, users appear in the chosen format when you look in the Users and Computers snap-in.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/250455

TMG 2010 and Exchange 2010 Resource Forest: OWA Login Issues (Account is Disabled??)

I recently wrapped up a large TMG deployment in support of a new Exchange 2010 resource forest and there were a lot of lessons learned (read: issues that needed to be overcome), so I figured I would try to capture the main ones for the blogosphere.
Part 2 of 3 – OWA Login Issues (Account is Disabled??)
This article assumes a fairly decent knowledge of both TMG and Exchange. It is not meant to be a detailed step-by-step configuration guide.  All steps should be tested prior to production rollout.
This particular issue started happening when I enabled the ability for users to change their passwords from the TMG login page.  Immediately after that, when logging on to OWA with an account from the account forest (which is the account connected to the Exchange 2010 Linked Mailbox), TMG says the account is disabled (and it’s not).  One of the key items here is that the sAMAccountName is the same on both accounts.
I found a KB article about the exact same issue but for ISA.  The issue is in the additional things TMG does behind the scenes during login to determine password age and expiration.  It stops on the first account it finds, which is the one in TMG’s local domain, which is in fact disabled as it is in the resource forest, so you are denied.  To verify, we turned off the password stuff in TMG and it began to work properly again.  The fix for the ISA issue was to apply a hotfix, then run a script to enable the new functionality.  Since TMG uses the same code base as ISA, I made the assumption that the hotfix code was already part of TMG and all we would need to do is run the script.  The assumption turned out to be correct, just run the script in the KB article below on your TMG servers.  I think you only need to run it on one server in each array (didn’t make a note of that), but it won’t hurt to run it again on each node.
Associated ISA KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952675

TMG 2010 and Exchange 2010 Resource Forest: Redirection to Legacy Exchange 2003

I recently wrapped up a large TMG deployment in support of a new Exchange 2010 resource forest and there were a lot of lessons learned (read: issues that needed to be overcome), so I figured I would try to capture the main ones for the blogosphere.

Part 1 of 3 – Redirection to Legacy Exchange 2003

This article assumes a fairly decent knowledge of both TMG and Exchange. It is not meant to be a detailed step-by-step configuration guide; it only serves to identify the key configuration elements for redirection. All steps should be tested prior to production rollout, usually by editing the hosts file to force traffic to the right IP for testing.
In our original publishing model, ISA or TMG is used to publish the Exchange 2003 FE.  Pretty straightforward.
Original Publishing Model

Exchange 2010 in Same Forest as Exchange 2003

In the case of an upgrade/transition to Exchange 2010 (a deployment of Exchange 2010 in the same forest as the legacy Exchange 2003 environment), the Exchange 2010 CAS servers can be configured to hand out a legacy URL for OWA.  TMG/ISA is generally used to publish the new Exchange environment under the standard name, and to publish the legacy Exchange environment under the legacy URL.
The goal here has three components:

1. Avoid modification of the existing, legacy Exchange environment
2. Allow publishing/redirection of OWA for both Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2003 users
3. Allow the publishing/redirection with a single sign on

New Publishing Model – Upgrade/Transition in Same Forest

If you were using TMG originally, it is possible to achieve this by deploying a new TMG server/array, or by modifying the publishing rules on your existing deployment.
The steps:

1. Install the new public certificate on TMG. The new certificate should have all of the DNS names required by your Exchange 2010 deployment: Autodiscover (autodiscover.company.com), Outlook Anywhere (outlook.company.com), and OWA (webmail.company.com).  It should also have the new legacy Exchange URL (legacy.company.com).
2. Ensure the certificate on the Exchange 2010 CAS server has the appropriate public name.
3. Configure the legacy Exchange URL on the Exchange 2010 CAS (legacy.company.com)
4. Create a single Web listener using that certificate, with SSO enable for your domain (.company.com in this example).
5. Create and test the appropriate Exchange 2010 publishing rules, using the above listener:
• OWA (for the public name webmail.company.com)
• OA (for the public name outlook.company.com)
• Autodiscover (for the public name autodiscover.company.com)
6. Create and test a new Exchange 2003 publishing rule, using the same listener as the Exchange 2010 publishing rules.
• Public name must be legacy.company.com, but the old name (webmail.company.com) must be sent to the Exchange 2003 server because it was not configured for the legacy.company.com name.  To do this enter the name that Exchanger 2003 is configured for (webmail.company.com) on the “To” tab of the rule, and uncheck the box for “Forward the original host header instead of the actual one (specified in the Internal site name field)”.  I also recommend using the IP address of the Exchange 2003 server to avoid DNS issues with the name.
  
  
7. Create DNS entries for all new public names to the IP of TMG
8. Update existing DNS entries (webmail.company.com) to the IP of TMG

For an Exchange upgrade/transition in the same forest, this should meet the required goals.  No changes have been made to the Exchange 2003 environment.  All publishing rules use the same listener, so single sign on should be working.  All users are initially sent to the Exchange 2010 CAS, but if their mailbox is on Exchange 2003, the Exchange 2010 CAS redirects the user to legacy.company.com, which TMG is now configured to publish to Exchange 2003.  The only change to the user experience is that Exchange 2003 users will notice their browser change to legacy.company.com, even though they browsed to webmail.company.com.

Exchange 2010 in a Resource Forest

However, there is a SMALL catch for a resource forest – Exchange 2010 redirection to Exchange 2003 doesn’t work.  Also, it is important to remember that in a resource forest, user are logging in to their mailboxes with their AD accounts in the account forest, and the AD accounts in the resource forest are disabled.
In general, the TMG architecture is the same, and with a few minor technical modifications and one migration process modification the same goals can be achieved.  An added bonus is that the Exchange 2003 does not have the address changed to legacy.company.com in this model, so in the case that the change in address is unacceptable to the business, these same changes can be applied to a normal upgrade/transition as well.
New Publishing Model – Resource Forest

Since Exchange 2010 can’t determine where the user’s mailbox is, we need to configure TMG to handle it.
The TMG configuration detailed in the previous section should be modified as follows:

1. Create an AD group that contains the Exchange 2010 migrated users.
• Can be in either in forest, but the accounts in the group must be from the account domain
2. Ensure the Exchange 2010 publishing rules are above the Exchange 2003 rule.
3. Create a User Set in TMG that contains the newly created group.
4. Modify the Exchange 2010 publishing rules to only allow the newly created set (on the “Users” tab).
5. Modify the Exchange 2003 publishing rule to allow the traditional public name (webmail.company.com).

With these changes, TMG will only send members of the AD group to Exchange 2010, and all users not in the group will be sent to Exchange 2003.  The process change is that you must update the membership of the group as users move to Exchange 2010.
The group is only temporary and is no longer needed once the transition is completed.  In that case, remove the Exchange 2003 publishing rule and change the Exchange 2010 rule back to “Authenticated Users”.  You can then delete the User Set in TMG and the group in AD.

Windows Server 2008 Core: Read-Only DC

New in Windows Server 2008 is the option to create a read-only domain controller (RODC). To deploy an RODC, the domain controller that holds the PDC emulator operations master role (also known as flexible single master operations or FSMO) for the domain must be running Windows Server 2008. In addition, the functional level for the forest must be Windows Server 2003.

Because the administration of a Server Core is done from the command line only (at least initially), dcpromo must be run with a host of options to promote the Server Core installation to a domain controller (read-only or standard). From the Windows Server 2008 Technical Library, here are the command line options for dcpromo. The options can optionally be specified in an answer file.

So, to create a RODC on a Server Core installation without also installing DNS, the command line would be:

dcpromo /unattend /ReplicaDomainDNSName: /ReplicaOrNewDomain:ReadOnlyReplica /SiteName: /InstallDNS:No /DatabasePath:"C:\NTDS" /LogPath:"C:\NTDS" /SysVolPath:"C:\SYSVOL"

Obviously, the paths for the database, logs, and sysvol would need to be changed to the appropriate location for your environment. The bulk of the parameters are pretty self-explanatory, but two need attention called out. First, the /ReplicaOrNewDomain:ReadOnlyReplica parameter is what defines the DC as a RODC. Using /ReplicaOrNewDomain:Replica creates a standard DC in an existing domain. Using /ReplicaOrNewDomain:NewDomain should be pretty obvious, but it does introduce a slew of different required parameters and options. Also, when creating a RODC you must specify the site name using the /SiteName parameter. I’m not sure, but I would assume this is for the enabling of universal group membership caching. So, if you haven’t figured it out, you’ll need to create the site for the RODC in AD DS before you promote the server to a RODC.

Other handy parameters:

• /ConfirmGC:No – Do not configure the server as a GC (Default is Yes).
• /CriticalReplicationOnly:Yes – This forces dcpromo to only replicate the critical directory information before rebooting, postpoting the full replication of the remaining AD DS information until after a reboot; can be useful for large directories to speed up the dcpromo process (Default is No).
• /ReplicationSourceDC: – This forces the replication operation to use a specific domain controller.

Hiding Server 2008 R2 Favourites and Libraries in Windows Explorer

Server 2008 R2 does not provide a gpo to do this but you can modify registry key to hide them. You can try this via Preferences in gpo but you need to take ownership of the keys before it will run.


Please backup your registry prior to making edits as mistakes can cause you machine to stop working.

Favorites, the key is: 


HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}\ShellFolder

Change the Attributes value from a0900100 to a9400100 will hide Favorites from Navigation Pane.

For Libraries, the key is:


HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}\ShellFolder

Change the Attributes value from b080010d to b090010d will hide Libraries from Navigation Pane.

how to reset domain admin password on a Windows Server 2008

I did not use my tests Virtual Machines for some times just after installing them....I forgot the domain admin password :'(
I found a hack for Vista, that i reused for my Windows Server 2008 Domain controller !
I just pushed it a litlle further by only using the official Windows Server 2008 DVD from Microsoft instead of backtrack :)

For people in hurry, here are the steps:

• Boot onto DVD of Windows Server 2008
• Choose “Repair your computer”
• Launch cmd
• Go to c:\windows\system32
• Rename Utilman.exe to Utilman.exe.bak
• Copy cmd.exe to Utilman.exe
• Reboot on Windows
• Do the keyboard shortcut Windows + U when on the logon screen
• net user administrator Newpass123 inside the cmd
• log on with the domain admin account and this new pass
• change the password to remember it if needed
• Reboot on the DVD to put back the original Utilman.exe

Recovering Folder Options after a Virus Attack!

1. Go to Run and type gpedit.msc and press Enter.
2. In the Local Group Policy console thus appears find this policy under User Configuration.

3. Set it as Disabled.
4. Your Folder Options option will be restored.
5. If however it is not restored then go to Run again and type gpupdate /force and press Enter.

6. Even then if you don't see the option restored try restarting your computer.

Hacking - Early History:

During the 1960s, the word "hacker" grew to prominence describing a person with 

strong computer skills, an extensive understanding of how computer programs worked,

 and a driving curiosity about computer systems. Hacking, however, soon became nearly

 synonymous with illegal activity. While the first incidents of hacking dealt with breaking 

into phone systems, hackers also began diving into computer systems as technology 

advanced.

Hacking became increasingly problematic during the 1980s. As a result, the Computer 

Fraud and Abuse Act were created, imposing more severe punishments for those caught

 abusing computer systems. In the early 1980s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation 

(FBI) made one of its first arrests related to hacking. A Milwaukee-based group known

 as the 414s was accused of breaking into 60 different computer systems including 

the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centerand the Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Later that decade, the infamous Kevin Mitnick was arrested and sentenced to 

one year in jail for damaging computers and stealing software. He was arrested 

again in 1995 for computer fraud and put in jail for hacking Motorola Inc., 

Sun Microsystems Inc., NEC Corp., and Novell Inc. to steal software, product plans,

 and data. Mitnick eventually cost the firms a total of roughly $80 million.

As negative publicity surrounding hackers continued to grow, those who considered

 themselves true hackers-computer programming enthusiasts who pushed computer 

systems to their limits without malicious intent and followed a hacker code of ethics-grew

 weary of the media's depiction of hackers. As a result, several hacker groups coined

 the term 'cracker' in 1985 to define a person who broke into computer systems and 

ignored hacker ethics; however, the media continued to use the word hacker despite 

the fact that although most early hackers believed technical information should be freely

 available to any person, they abided by a code of ethics that looked down upon destroying,

 moving, or altering information in a way could cause injury or expense.

AT&T Corp., Griffith Air Force Base, NASA, and the Korean Atomic Research Institute all

 fell prey to hackers in the early 1990s. Federal World Wide Web sites, including those of 

the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Air Force, and the CIA, were also attacked by 

hackers and defaced. During 1995 alone, U.S. Defense Department computers dealt with 

250,000 hacker attacks. As technology advanced and business transactions conducted 

over the Internet increased, malicious hackers became even more destructive. Popular 

Web sites such as Yahoo!, America Online, eBay, and Amazon.com were hacked, costing 

millions and leaving online shoppers doubtful about security on these sites; a 16-year-old 

Canadian boy operating under the name Mafia boy was arrested for these attacks, as well 

as for breaking into both Harvard's and Yale's university computer systems. Under the terms 

of his parole, Mafia boy was not allowed to use the Internet or go into stores that sold 

computers, and his computer use was limited to that which was supervised by a teacher 

at school.

Types of Hacking

Hacking Types

1) Inside Jobs - Most security breeches originate inside the network that is under attack. 

Inside jobs include stealing passwords (which hackers then use or sell), performing industrial

 espionage, causing harm (as disgruntled employees), or committing simple misuse. Sound

 policy enforcement and observant employees who guard their passwords and PCs can thwart

 many of these security breeches.

2) Rogue Access Points - Rogue access points (APs) are unsecured wireless access points

 that outsiders can easily breech. (Local hackers often advertise rogue APs to each other.) 

Rogue APs are most often connected by well-meaning but ignorant employees.

3) Back Doors - Hackers can gain access to a network by exploiting back doors�'

administrative shortcuts, configuration errors, easily deciphered passwords, and 

unsecured dial-ups. With the aid of computerized searchers (bots), hackers can probably

 find any weakness in your network.

4) Viruses and Worms - Viruses and worms are self-replicating programs or code 

fragments that attach themselves to other programs (viruses) or machines (worms). 

Both viruses and worms attempt to shut down networks by flooding them with massive

 amounts of bogus traffic, usually through e-mail.

5) Trojan Horses - Trojan horses, which are attached to other programs, are the

 leading cause of all break-ins. When a user downloads and activates a Trojan horse, 

the hacked software (SW) kicks off a virus, password gobbler, or remote-control SW 

that gives the hacker control of the PC.

6) Denial of Service - DoS attacks give hackers a way to bring down a network without

 gaining internal access. DoS attacks work by flooding the access routers with bogus 

traffic (which can be e-mail or Transmission Control Protocol, TCP, packets).

Distributed DoSs (DDoS5) are coordinated DoS attacks from multiple sources. 

A DDoS is more difficult to block because it uses multiple, changing, source IP addresses.

7) Anarchists, Crackers, and Kiddies - Who are these people, and why are they 

attacking I your network?Anarchists are people who just like to break stuff. 

They usually exploit any target of opportunity.Crackers are hobbyists or professionals

 who break passwords and develop Trojan horses or other SW (called warez). 

They either use the SW themselves (for bragging rights) or sell it for profit.

Script kiddies are hacker wannabes. They have no real hacker skills, so they 

buy or download warez, which they launch.Other attackers include disgruntled 

employees, terrorists, political operatives, or anyone else who feels slighted, 

exploited, ripped off, or unloved.

8) Sniffing and Spoofing - Sniffing refers to the act of intercepting TCP packets. 

This interception can happen through simple eavesdropping or something more sinister.

Spoofing is the act of sending an illegitimate packet with an expected acknowledgment

 (ACK), which a hacker can guess, predict, or obtain by snooping.

As the cost of hacking attacks continues to rise, businesses have been forced to increase

 spending on network security. However, hackers have also developed new skills that allow

 them to break into more complex systems. Hacking typically involves compromising 

the security of networks, breaking the security of application software, or creating malicious

 programs such as viruses.

The most popular forms of network hacking are denial of service (DoS) attacks and 

mail bombs. DoS attacks are designed to swamp a computer network, causing it to crash.

 Mail bombs act in a similar fashion, but attack the network's mail servers. When eBay was

 attacked in February 2000, its Web server was bombarded with fake requests for Web pages,

 which overloaded the site and caused it to crash. Network hackers also try to break into 

secure areas to find sensitive data. Once a network is hacked, files can be removed, stolen,

 or erased. A group of teens in Wichita, Kansas, for example, hacked into AOL and 

stole credit card numbers that they then used to buy video games.

Application hackers break security on application software-software including word 

processing and graphics programs-in order to get it for free. One way they gain access

 to software that requires a serial number for installation is by setting up a serial number

 generator that will try millions of different combinations until a match is found.

 Application hackers also sometimes attack the program itself in an attempt to remove 

certain security features.

Hackers that create viruses, logic bombs, worms, and Trojan horses are involved in perhaps

 the most malicious hacking activities. A virus is a program that has the potential to attack

 and corrupt computer files by attaching itself to a file to replicate itself. It can also cause 

a computer to crash by utilizing all of the computer's resources. For example, e-mail systems

 were inundated with the "ILOVEYOU" and the "Love Bug" viruses in May of 2000, and

the damage to individuals, businesses, and institutions was estimated at roughly $10 billion. 

Similar to viruses, logic bombs are designed to attack when triggered by a certain event like 

a change in date. Worms attack networks in order to replicate and spread. In July of 2001, 

a worm entitled "Code Red" began attacking Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 

systems. The worm infected servers running Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, 

and IIS 4.0 and defaced Web sites, leaving the phrase "Welcome to www.worm.com 

Hacked by Chinese!" Finally, a Trojan horse is a program that appears to do one thing, 

but really does something else. While a computer system might recognize 

a Trojan horse as a safe program, upon execution, it can release a virus, worm, 

or logic bomb.

How to Fix USB Device Not Recognized in Windows

Are you getting a “USB device not recognized” error whenever you plug in a USB mouse, keyboard, or other USB device? I love USB and have 5 ports on my computer so that I can connect my mouse, keyboard, camera, phone, and printer to it all at once!

However, last weekend, my computer stopped recognizing my USB devices! The strange thing about it was that the USB ports were not bad because all of my devices were still getting power to them. I could still charge my cell phone without a problem!

So I started with the normal fixing methods, including uninstalling the drivers for my devices and reinstalling them. That didn’t work! Next I tried System Restore thinking that maybe I had installed something and it caused a conflict with the USB system drivers. That didn’t work!

I read online that in order to fix this problem I should go to Device Manager and uninstall all of the devices under USB Controllers. Restarted the computer, reinstalled the USB drivers, but the problem STILL did not go away!

You may also see in Device Manager that the device shows up as an “Unknown Device”.

So how did I finally fix the problem? Well, apparently it’s a super simple solution! No need to edit the registry, uninstall drivers, or anything of that sort.

Simply UNPLUG YOUR COMPUTER FROM THE POWER SUPPLY. Yes that’s it! Note that this does not mean just turning off your computer because modern computers don’t really turn off when you press the power button as the motherboard still gets power.

First to explain, the motherboard is where all of hardware of the computer is connected to, including the USB ports. Sometimes the motherboard needs to be “rebooted” also because something can go wrong, i.e. all your USB ports suddenly stop working. The small microprocessor on the motherboard will reload the drivers and your USB ports should be back to recognizing all devices!

So first turn off your computer using Shut Down or pressing the power button and then UNPLUG it from the wall outlet. Let it sit for about a minute and then plug it back in.

Hope this helps someone fix that pesky “USB device not recognized” Windows error!

10 Awesome Windows 8 Registry Hacks You Might Not Know

As Windows 8 gets closer to the final release, I’ve already started seeing a lot of ways to customize or tweak the registry! There are a lot of visual and under-the-hood changes in Windows 8 and not all of them can be changed via the GUI settings.

In this article, I’ll show you 10 cool registry hacks you can use to customize your Windows 8 install. I’m sure there will be a lot more customizations in the coming months, so feel free to post a comment and let us know any that you find.

Disable Charms Bar Hint

The Charms bar in Windows 8 pops up the second you move your mouse to the top right or bottom right corner of the screen. I find it annoying because I do this by accident a lot. There is a registry key that lets you disable the hint so that the bar only opens when you move to the top or bottom right and then slide your mouse down or up along the right edge.

Prevent Charms Bar Keeps Opening by Accident in Windows 8

Desktop Icon Spacing

Thanks Microsoft for getting rid of the options to customize our desktop! What used to be so easy is now a registry hack! In order to change the desktop icon spacing (horizontal and vertical), you have to edit two values in the registry. Check out our previous post below.

Change Desktop Icon Spacing in Windows 8

Change Number of Row Tiles

By default, Windows 8 will try to figure out the number of rows it should show on your Start Screen based on the resolution of your monitor. What if you don’t want the number of rows it determines? Well, you can change it to a different value if you like. As you can see, I decided on only two rows instead of having 5 rows. You can choose a value from 1 to 5. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid

Create a new DWORD value here and name it Layout_MaximumRowCount. Give it a value between 1 and 5. Enjoy!

Disable User Account Control

User Account Control is a different beast in Windows 8 and you can’t even fully disable it via the traditional GUI interface you see above. To actually turn it off, you have to go to the registry. However, there are a few unexpected consequences to disabling UAC in Windows 8, which you can read in full below.

OTT Explains – UAC (User Account Control) in Windows 8

Confirm File Delete Dialog

Another missing feature in Windows 8 is the confirm file delete dialog we were all so familiar with. I never noticed it too much, but when I first deleted a file in Windows 8, I was shocked to see that the file just went straight to the recycle bin. I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually, but if you really want it back, here’s how to get it back. Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\

Go ahead and create a new key under Policies called Explorer. Then create a new DWORD value and give it a name of ConfirmFileDelete. Change the value to 1 if you want the delete file dialog and 0 if you don’t want it. Sweet!

Registered Owner

Even though it’s so old and useless, I still like having the ability to change the registered own in Windows to whatever I like. Don’t ask me why, it’s just some weird geek thing from the early days of Windows. Luckily, Microsoft still has the value stored in a registry key which you can change to whatever you like.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

Under CurrentVersion, just find RegisteredOwner and change it. Also, note there is aRegisteredOrganization, you could could actually put two custom lines in the about Windows dialog. How do you even get to that dialog in Windows 8? Go to the Start Screen and start typing winver.

Paint Desktop Version

If you’re running several copies of Windows 8 on multiple computers and in virtual machines like I am, it’s nice to have the Windows version painted onto the desktop automatically. Windows 8 has a registry key that enables you to add this to your desktop automatically. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Find PaintDesktopVersion under the Desktop key and change the value from 0 to 1. Next time you login, you’ll see the Windows 8 version number and build number.

Border Width

If you don’t like the border size around all your windows while on the desktop, then you can change it by going to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

Find the key called BorderWidth and change it to any value between 0 and 50. It’s defaulted to -15, which is some odd numbering scheme employed by Microsoft which I don’t really get. Luckily, you can just use 0 to 50 for this registry setting instead of the crazy negative numbers.

Prevent Users From Uninstalling Apps

By default, you can uninstall any app that you download from the Windows Store. However, it could be useful to create a user account for guests or your kids and then prevent users from uninstalling the apps. As you can see above, when I right-click on a metro app, the Uninstall options is gone! Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

You’re going to have to create the Explorer key under Windows and under Explorer you’re going to need to create a new DWORD value called NoUninstallFromStart. Give that a value of 1 and then sign out and sign back in.

Enable Snap on Low Res Screens

If you’re running Windows 8 at a lower resolution, you may not be able to snap metro apps to the right or left side of the screen. However, using a little registry hack, you can get the benefit even on lower resolutions. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\

Under the ImmersiveShell key, create a new key called AppPositioner. Under the new key, go ahead and create a new DWORD value called AlwaysEnableLSSnapping. Go ahead and give this a value of 1.

If you’re using Windows 8 and feel comfortable modifying the registry, feel free to play around with the options above and customize Windows 8 to your delight. Enjoy!