Protect Your Servers: Follow these Steps

If you're a small business, you may not have more than a server or two. But no matter how few or how many servers you are running, your network relies on them. They serve the applications or web pages or e-mail your team needs to do their jobs. They store valuable and/or confidential information resources. They provide a means for your customers to communicate with you, perhaps even purchase goods or services from you.

Basic Steps You Can Take

Many of the procedures already discussed will help protect your servers too. So if you haven't yet taken care of the following, make these steps a priority:

Step 1: Protect Your Desktops and Laptops

Step 2: Keep Your Data Safe

Step 3: Use the Internet Safely

Step 4: Protect Your Network

Even with those security measures addressed, there is more you can do to protect your servers.

1. Keep your servers in a safe place. Businesses must make sure that their servers are not vulnerable to physical calamities. Locate these machines in a secure, well-ventilated room, not in a hallway or under a desk where someone might inadvertently kick or spill coffee on them. Or mischievously tinker with them. Your server room should have no windows and a single door you can lock. Server cases should also be locked to prevent tampering with internal components. Know which employees have keys to the server room. You should also keep a record of the serial numbers of your servers, and mark them with your company information, so they can be identified and recovered if stolen.

2. Practice least privilege. With Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003 and Small Business Server 2003, it is possible to assign users different permission levels. Rather than giving all users "Administrator" access - which is not a best practice for maintaining a secure environment for PCs or servers - you should use your servers to manage client PCs. Windows Servers can be configured to give individual users access to specific programs only, and to define which user privileges are allowed on the server. This ensures users can't make changes in areas that are critical to the server or client PC operation. It also prevents them from installing software that may introduce a virus or otherwise compromise the integrity of your network.

3. Understand your security options. Today's servers are more secure than ever, but the powerful security settings you find in Windows server products are only good if they are used appropriately and monitored aggressively. If your team doesn't have an IT specialist and/or expertise in security issues, consider hiring an outside consultant to work with you to appropriately protect your servers.

Source: Microsoft

Google's Send Mail Server Security Certificate Expires

It appears that Google's Gmail SMTP (send mail) server might have let their secure certificate expire. I personally just got notified that the smtp.gmail.com server was not secure, due to the certificate expiring. Here is a screen capture:-

So, it seems like it just expired just minutes ago. I asked others to confirm the issue and they said they are getting the same error.

Scott Hodge did twit about a month ago about the same issue. But this is the first time I am seeing this issue and the certificate clearly shows that it expired just minutes ago.

Postscript: A Google spokesperson told for a short time this morning, some Gmail users sending mail via POP and IMAP saw a notification on their mail clients that the SMTP certificate had expired. We identified the problem and fixed it promptly. We know how important Gmail is for our users, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Small Business Computer Support and Microsoft Exchange Server Support will always be provided by the Microsoft Certified Techs 24x7..

Microsoft Home Server

The Small Business Technology blog talks about Microsoft Home Server. While this server is designed for the home, it also will work for the small business that only has a couple of computers.

Home Server fills a niche that previously was not being served. Microsoft does offer Small Business Server and while it is designed for companies with under 75 employees, it is more sophisticated than most starts up need or may need for many years.

One of the nice features in Home Server is that it will monitor the health of your pc and insure that such important items as your security software is up to date. In addition you can set it up to automatically back up files for your pc's every day so that you do not lose any important data.

Another nice feature is that you can remotely access your information. For example say you are on a business trip, you can access reports, invoices, order forms or any other data you might need without having to download everything to your mobile device or laptop.

For small start ups this may be a good tool to deal with your small network until your needs become greater.