“Beyond the security of the VPN, Friedl cited numerous
security issues with the computer terminal configured and provided
by ComStock, including the use of a badly outdated version of the
Linux operating system. ComStock uses Red Hat Version 5.1. In
the two years since that version came out, numerous security
patches have come down the pike.”
“There have been critical security patches that have been
applied since Red Hat 5.1,” said Erik Troan, director of operating
system engineering for Red Hat. “If they haven’t been keeping
track, any machine that has been running on the Internet for two
years without an update is going to be a big problem.” Red Hat
Version 6.2 came out last month.”
“Knowing that the CSP would be located on a private ‘trusted
network,’ there was no immediate need to create a Linux machine
with top security measures instituted,” read the email from Jack
Gioffre, product development manager for ComStock.”