To all user group chairs:

I'd like to ask your assistance.  My group, the Boston Area Exchange
Server User Group, is planning a special presentation at our November
meeting (11/29).  The topic will be "E-Mail: The Backdoor To Your
Network," and will be given by Kevin Sullivan, president of C3 Group.
[Some of you may remember that Kevin gave a key security presentation to
the October TechNet expo last year.  It was extremely well received.]
Please note that this presentation is not Exchange Server specific.  It
addresses e-mail systems and vulnerabilities in general, regardless of
platform!

I am declaring this meeting "special" because of the importance of the
topic, as well as the fact that I am promoting it to multiple user
groups.  In particular, I'd like to ask if you could announce this
meeting to your user groups, either by e-mail or at your upcoming
meeting.

The details that I provided in my own group's October newsletter are
below my signature.  You can feel free to copy the content, or to
summarize accordingly.

Please let me know if you are willing to announce this to your group (or
not).

Thank you,
Brad Dinerman
Chair, Boston Area Exchange Server User Group
Director and Webmaster, BostonUserGroups, Inc.

__________________________________________________________________

SPECIAL NOVEMBER MEETING
This is a *must-attend* event, and will be publicized to a large number
of user groups.  Kevin Sullivan, president and security specialist
extraordinaire of C3 Group, will present on a topic that is probably
near and dear to most of our hearts: "E-Mail: The Backdoor To Your
Network."  The presentation will be interesting for both the
non-technical as well as the overly-technical.

Kevin writes:
        "Recent experience with the rapidly spreading and highly
destructive Nimda and SirCam worms has demonstrated the ease with which
a harmful "payload" can slip in to many otherwise secure networks via
Email.  I will open by having a sacrificial laptop with IE 5.5 SP1 and
Outlook 2K SP1. I will connect to a server and receive my e-mail
messages, then watch as my poor computer becomes infected with as many
different viruses and worms as I can cram in before it dies. Then we
will follow the process (on another system) of how the attack got from
the (possibly) clueless sender to the clueless recipient.  We will
review how the mail travels from your desktop to the recipient - through
local, corporate, and Internet servers. We will pay particular attention
to attachments - how they are attached, transmitted, and delivered (and
we will break the silence surrounding MIME).  Finally, we will look at
some specific examples of vulnerabilities and how they can be reduced."
       
OK, so in addition to being an incredibly timely and popular topic, what
else is different?  Because it will be highly publicized to the user
group community and we will be expecting a higher than usual turnout,
registration will be required for this meeting.  You can pre-register at
http://www.ExchangeServerBoston.com/Registration.  In addition, I will
be asking for the first time ever, for a nominal fee for the meeting.
It is only a paltry $2, but will help to cover some of the base
operating expenses for this and other meetings, including our membership
to Boston User Groups, Inc.  [Those who register at the door will have
to shell out a whopping 50% more, $3]

I've already asked a number of vendors for raffle contributions for this
meeting, and many of them have happily obliged.  As usual,
pizza/beverages will be free of charge, and will be sponsored this month
by SilverSword Solutions (http://www.SilverSword.com).