Retail group Edcon moved to protect itself against virus attacks last night, shutting down its non-mission-critical systems, including some e-mail, and re-routing incoming .EXE attachments to a holding server, says CIO Henri Slabbert.
Slabbert says international fears of commemorative 11 September virus attacks and in particular reports of a new Microsoft vulnerability led to the decision.
"We looked at the situation over a number of days to give ourselves time to make sure Edcon is protected against any intrusions," Slabbert adds.
"The e-mail is up again. Because Japan wakes up before we do, we took care to shut down since 6pm yesterday until 9am today."
As some staff members make use of .EXE files in the course of their work, says Slabbert, Edcon can not normally block such attachments to their e-mail messages. During the watch period, however, the company blocked these files, routing them to a dedicated server where they were analysed.
"Staff then had the option of telling us which .EXEs they needed to see."
Similarly, some suppliers communicate and trade via e-mail, and this function was not stopped either, Slabbert explains.
New Microsoft flaw
Microsoft has warned of serious new flaws that leave its flagship Windows software vulnerable to Internet attacks. They may be "remarkably similar to the Blaster virus", according to reports.
Similar to the RPC buffer overrun, the patch provided supersedes that of the RPC vulnerability, first announced on 16 July, the company states in its security bulletin.
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