According to a Yahoo! story posted Monday, Microsoft engineers have admitted there is a deliberately placed back door in IIS (Internet Information Server), the Web server that ships with Windows NT Server and Windows 2000 server and used by 20% of Web sites, especially smaller e-commerce sites.

This back door is said to be in file dvwssr.dll, which should be deleted as it has also been implecated in buffer overflow hacks. It is installed as part of the FrontPage 98 extensions.

- Analysis -

Well, the way this was reported certainly looked like something new and not simply a repeat of the buffer overflow from April 2000. It even quoted Microosft's official respons as "absolutely against our policy". So why was the story pulled? Did someone really just make it up?

Whether the story proves true or not, do not host your site on Microsoft products, insist on Unix or Linux servers (almost every ISP has them available). In addition to any back doors, every hacker, cracker, script kiddie and spy can just walk right in the front door. I don't know why Microsoft would even bothers with back doors. See April Security Meltdown.

- Andrew Grygus

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