full-disclosure - [ Full-Disclosure] A mans got to patch

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From: randallm at fidmail.com (RandallM)
Subject: [ Full-Disclosure] A mans got to patch

thank you
Randall M

To my mentors:

Let me first give a short history to my situation. I work for a company that
began 10ys ago with three Mac servers and about 25 Mac workstations. 10
years later they have 34 servers, 345 PC workstations and 60 G4/G5 Macs in 5
locations around the USA.

I have been in the IT area for one and half years. I have worked for this
company for one year. Patching was not done as needed due to the growth and
continuous requirements put on the two Techs. For the last three days I have
seen what I believe to be Agobot exploits (searching on names found in the
registry were said to be associated with such). 

I have been reading this list for about three weeks now. I have become more
aware of dangers that await. Frankly I'm scared to death :) I want to begin
the tedious task of patching the servers and workstation and can think of no
better place then here to get some what I feel would be very expert advice
on doing this in the best fashion.

Our current environment: Moved to AD Domain this year. Have yet a mix member
server environment with some of the NT's still with Explorer 5.5 (I can hear
some here thinking "give me your IP! :>) ). I have gone through some of the
servers with Microsoft security scanner and with some I simply went to the
update area. Many had never visited there before as the initial visit loads
the scanner engine. The weakness here is norm for the workstations also. 
We do tape backups nightly. Some of our main problems are the programs that
are still used can't be repaired easily, such as, Dynamics. Also some
servers are running programs that we could never place back on because they
had to be sent off to be loaded by the experts of the software companies.
Another example is the web server with is hanging on by a thread. They paid
nearly $175,000 8 years ago for their online presence. That is no longer
supported and we don't know a dam thing about it except to keep it going!

So here you see my need. My guess is that I have to know something of the
risks with certain patches so as not to get myself in trouble loosing
sensitive material and such not to mention my job for pushing for this to be
done. I don't see this as a simple visit to window update. Your advices
would be greatly appreciated. I don't mind say I'm scared to death.

Randall M