help in locating a website that explains the purpose of microsoft services

[Guest]

Hello,

A security team recently perform a port scan on our servers, and some ports were recommended to be closed. However, these ports have services running eg. ncacn_http, snew, landesk-cba, etc. What I want to know is: Is there a website that I can go to that will explain the purpose of these microsoft services? Using a search engine is no help, and too time consuming for each. I do not want to close ports when these maybe legitimate services for the particular server.

On another issue, some end users have been asking for MSN Messenger to be installed on their workstations. Is there any security risk involved in this? They have W2k Professional and cannot installed any software, also the firewall prohibits them from using the http protocol during working hours. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Bjorn Landemoo]

Samantha

Check out these:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/howitworks/management/w2kservices.asp

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=832017

Best regards

Bjorn

 

[Greg Stigers]

For ports, see http://grc.com/PortDataHelp.htm. Gibson does have his own
agenda.

SANS has a "Understanding Instant Messaging (IM) and its security risks"
white paper in IM security risks at
<http://www.sans.org/rr/papers/44/1239.pdf> and "The Instant-Messaging
Menace" at
<http://www.sans.org/rr/papers/60/479.pdf>, among others.

Neither site are the end all and be all, but should help.