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500 Chapter 8 • Infrastructure Security: System Hardening

Protocol (NNTP) servers, file and print servers, and data repositories. It also
explores directory services and databases.

NOTE
As in the OS and NOS section, as you work to understand and utilize the
updates, hotfixes, service packs, and patches in the application area, be
sure to test these repairs on machines that are in a parallel network
environment. It is always prudent to test and try out the patches on
non-production equipment prior to implementation in a live production
network environment.

Updates

Updates are provided by the manufacturer of the application, and are usually
intended to enhance features or functionalities of the applications involved.

■ Updates for end-user applications increase the capability of the software to
perform tasks.

■ Updates of server applications are often cosmetic in nature, or provided to
expand the capability of a particular type of server beyond its original
uses.

In either case, it is important to evaluate the updates to determine whether or
not they are required or beneficial to the operation.Again, it is imperative to always
test on equipment that is not part of the production environment to limit problems
and downtime.

Hotfixes

Hotfixes for applications are provided by the vendors. However, these tend to be
specific to the function operating on a server.These include fixes for server applica-
tions such as Sendmail, Exchange, Microsoft Structured Query Language (SQL)
server, or a Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) DNS server.

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