The United States Department of Homeland Security (www.dhs.gov) changed its servers over to Oracle on Linux last week, after running on Windows 2000 for several months. Experts say that it is unlikely the change is a reaction to "Slammer," the MS . . .
The United States Department of Homeland Security (www.dhs.gov) changed its servers over to Oracle on Linux last week, after running on Windows 2000 for several months. Experts say that it is unlikely the change is a reaction to "Slammer," the MS SQL server worm that rocked the Internet last week.

Netcraft shows the change took place on January 24th and 25th. The site had previously run off the U.S. Office of Personnel Management servers, but now is listed with Energis Squared, the same group that hosts the White House website.

The changeover appears to coincide with the slamdown of the 'Net by the MS SQL server worm. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security were unwilling to comment on the server changes, but Jerry Brady, CTO of Guardent, a security consulting company that provides services to the federal government, says that it would not be possible to get a new server up and running that quickly. "The lead time there has got to be a lot more," he says. "Still, the general trend of vulnerability [in MS server products] would cause some concern."

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