The Metasploit Project has just officially released version 3.0 of the framework on their website.  3.0 is a complete rewrite of the framwork and is written in Ruby.  It currently contains 177 exploits, 104 payloads, 17 encoders, and 3 nop modules.  It is a fantastic tool for penetration testing, and best of all -- it's completely free.

Read their blog entry on the new of the 3.0 release here

And get yourself a copy of Metasploit 3.0 over here

Enjoy!

Shawn

This is beyond cool!  Idokorro (makers of two other very cool products Mobile Admin and Mobile Desktop) have just launched the first public Citrix Client for the Blackberry platform.  One could argue that a Citrix client on a Blackberry is not the ideal platform for getting work done, but I've been using it as I used the Mobile Desktop product - for on the go deperate troubleshooting (i.e. I don't have a laptop near me, but need to get in a reboot a system, etc).  Anyway,  checkout their website for a download link (they even have an OTA download available from mobile.idokorro.com

On one of my Presentation Server 4.0 boxes, I'm receiving the typical TS error message that you're not a member of the Remote Desktop Users group.  This is weird since this system works perfectly fine locally as well as via WI/CSG.  I've exchange emailed with the Idokorro folks who mentioned that they've seen this on about 4-5% of the downloaded installs.  They are currently researching a fix and expect it to take no longer than 1-2 weeks (how's that for support!). 

UPDATE: Idokorro has released a beta client that fixes the TS error message.  Contact them down a download URL.

Anyway, one of the REALLY cool things about this product is that it supports either connecting directly via TCP/IP through your carrier (for externally facing Citrix connections) or more appropriately you can tunnel through your existing BES/MDS service (which is awesome if you're trying to fix a problem with your WI/CSG config).  I just can't speak enough about how cool this product is.

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Exchange 2007 Outlook Web Access includes a functionality called WebReady document viewing that functions much the same as the HTML Preview functionality in Citrix's Advanced Access Control.  Currently 2003 versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, as well as PDF document types are supported, but this this able to be customized/extended for additional document types as well.  I realize that AAC provides greater control over the documents than this feature within Exchange, however it's still a great feature to include out of the box in Exchange 2007.

Read more at the MS Exchange Team's blog entry about WebReady document viewing

Shawn

In a recent press announcement LanDesk (makers of systems management/electronic software distribution products) has noted that they are in partnership with Thinstall.  Apparently LanDesk is eager to not be the only one left out of the growing software virtualization market.  Either that or they just want to make clear to everyone that they've still got what it takes since being taken over by a company that makes KVMs.

Thanks to dabcc.com for the news.

Shawn

MSDN has a great review up on IIS 7.0.Some of the highlights of the new IIS 7.0:Lean server core component (similar to server core in Longhorn).  Additional components can be enabled on an as-needed basis.  This of course helps to reduce the attack surface of the server.No more metabase (finally!).  All settings for IIS are now in an XML-based config file (much like the asp.net .config files)IIS Manager has been completely redone.  I personally think this is a huge improvement over the old admin tool.Improved diagnostics and tracing facilities for quickly locating problems in your web server or application pools.Improved performance through caching (ASP sites are dynamic which unfortunately leads to performance issues if the content has to be generated dynamically all the time.  IIS 7.0 has features that allow for output caching to reduce the amount of database calls, etc.Lots of other things...follow the link above for more info.Thanks...

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Citrix has acquired a load testing technology from thinGenius Ltd. of Edinburgh, Scotland.  Hopefully this is one of those products that will be made available to channel partners because I personally am always looking for a good efficient way of scale testing Citrix environments.

Read the press release from Citrix here

Shawn