CIS offers free server patching tool

The US-based Centre for Internet Security (CIS) has unveiled a free tool to help network managers patch their servers following reports that the Russian mafia is trying to milk unwary ebusinesses for credit card information.

Last week, the FBI released information about a series of economic extortion attacks that had already hit many online banking and ecommerce sites running Windows NT.

The law enforcement agency said that the details of more than one million credit cards have been stolen already, and that criminals are demanding money to keep sites safe from "other hackers" and to keep the site's credit card information confidential. The attackers were using specific well-known Windows NT vulnerabilities.

As a result, CIS has created PatchWork, which runs on Windows NT servers, automatically detecting known vulnerabilities and directing network managers to the relevant patches to fix them.

The tool then enables managers to verify that the patches are installed correctly, although it needs to be updated as new fixes come out.

PatchWork can be downloaded from the CISecurity website.