Re: What Is A "Weak Network Share"

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From: John Coutts (administrator_at_spam.yellowhead.com)
Date: 01/12/05 

Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:55:33 -0000

In article <cs3gek$q7g@library1.airnews.net>,
wjames@willwillwilljamesjamesjames.com says...
>
>We have a virus (acutally a worm) running around the office and one of the
>symptoms is it sends print job after print job to shared printers.
>
>(We use Windows 2000 OS)
>
>We have McAfee running on all our machines, but there must be a rogue
>machine somewhere.
>
>Until we find it, our printers are pretty much out of commission unless we
>disable sharing and print from just one person's machine.
>
>The Mcafee website says that the worm exploits "weak network shares."
>
>What the heck is a weak network share?
>
>I have removed "Everyone" from the permissions on the shared printers, and
>used explicit user names instead. No luck.
>
>I have also changed every user's password. No luck.
>
>So what is a weak network share, and how do I share a printer with a
>"strong" network share?
>
>Thanks
****************** REPLY SEPARATER *****************
A weak network share is one with no password or a password that is easy to
guess. No shared resourse should be operated without a "stong" password. XP is
worse than 2000 in that it promotes "simple networking" without passwords.
Since you used the terminology "shared printer", we must presume that these are
locally connected printers shared on the network. On NT syle operating systems,
in order to use a shared printer on the network, you simply have to have an
existing connection to a shared directory on that particular machine. In order
to accomplish that, your UserID and Passord must be in the SAM database on that
machine. When attempting to establish the connection, if your logged in
password on your machine is different than the password on the shared machine,
you will be prompted for the password.

This is basic network security.

J.A. Coutts

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