“Three months ago, the experienced system administrator put his
newest Linux server online. Three days later, an intruder had taken
control of it.”
“‘My first reaction was, How did he find me so fast?’ said Hall,
who manages the servers and computers for his family-run
e-business.”
“Exploiting a flaw in Washington University’s FTP server,
the intruder had cracked the server’s security and set up shop.
Hall’s system–in this case, Red Hat 6.2–shipped with the software
that contained the hole. While a patch for the vulnerability was
readily available on Red Hat’s Web site, like many other system
administrators, Hall just didn’t get around to installing
it.”