Microsoft will release an update to its Windows Server software for networked computers that will include new security enhancements.
The update, called Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, was designed to counter hacker attacks, vice president at Microsoft's security business unit Mike Nash said. "This release is a pretty important milestone," Mr Nash said, "We've learned about new kinds of threats, new engineering techniques and procedures."
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes all the updates released for Windows Server 2003 since it shipped, plus security, reliability, and performance enhancements, such as a security configuration wizard and firewall.
The service pack also includes a "security configuration wizard" that can detect a server's role--whether it's a file server, Web server, or database host, for example--then disable the software and ports not associated with that role. IT workers can copy those changes to groups of machines. Price says Service Pack 1 also makes DCOM, Microsoft's technology for distributed objects, less prone to attack.
"This is definitely the biggest set of security enhancements that we have ever delivered in a Windows Server service pack," says Jeff Price, director of Windows Server product management at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft last year delivered a similar large security update for its client operating system with SP2 for Windows XP.
