Just another day in (work) paradise.

Our webserver got hit last night with a SQL injection attack. I have to admire the elegance of the code, it's really ingenious, a buffer overrun exploit that translates into an MSSQL cursor update statement. Slick. Want the details?

Ours was one of thousands of web providers that were hit in the last week or so. We recovered from it in a matter of a few minutes: restored the database, added a quick bandaid to limit this sort of thing in the future. Over the next week or so, I'll do an audit of my code and take what measures I can. I deliberately wrote my code to prevent this, but I didn't anticipate something like this, obviously.

( Courtesy snip... )

Just another day in (work) paradise.

Our webserver got hit last night with a SQL injection attack. I have to admire the elegance of the code, it's really ingenious, a buffer overrun exploit that translates into an MSSQL cursor update statement. Slick. Want the details?

Ours was one of thousands of web providers that were hit in the last week or so. We recovered from it in a matter of a few minutes: restored the database, added a quick bandaid to limit this sort of thing in the future. Over the next week or so, I'll do an audit of my code and take what measures I can. I deliberately wrote my code to prevent this, but I didn't anticipate something like this, obviously.

( Courtesy snip... )

And how do we know it's Spring?

And how do we know it's Spring?

It's not the storms that blast through once a week and drop rain, hail, microbursts, straight-line winds, and our neighbors' (and sometimes our) trees into the streets.

It's not the flowers blooming their petaled heads above the old silvered mulch of last Autumn's leaves.

It's not the robins, red-breasted and fatly pregnant pulling worms from the freshly tilled soil where there vegetables will be in a few months.

No. It's not any of that.

( Courtesy snip... )

And how do we know it's Spring?

And how do we know it's Spring?

It's not the storms that blast through once a week and drop rain, hail, microbursts, straight-line winds, and our neighbors' (and sometimes our) trees into the streets.

It's not the flowers blooming their petaled heads above the old silvered mulch of last Autumn's leaves.

It's not the robins, red-breasted and fatly pregnant pulling worms from the freshly tilled soil where there vegetables will be in a few months.

No. It's not any of that.

( Courtesy snip... )