While the approach is not new, the working implementation of it "for the masses" is starting to appear more commonly.

As we have already received dozens of queries about how to stop this attack, we'd like to inform you that Astaro installations with current/updated Intrusion Protection Patterns will be protected against this, so neither admins or their Web Servers need to fear. The ID for this new rule is #1000023, and is located in the HTTP Servers Group under the Apache category. If your ASG installation is showing pattern revision 9857 or better, you are protected.

For more information on this new Beta version release, please read on.

This release is available both as an Up2Date download package via our FTP and a full ISO image for those that wish to join the Beta at this point, or wish to re-install at any time with the Beta version for continued testing.

*Please note: If you are already testing the 7.450 Beta release, your installation will automatically download the Up2Date and make it available to install via WebAdmin. You do not need to download the package manually (unless you wish to).

Details and Download
Up2Date 7.460 Package:
---------
Size : 107795134 bytes
MD5sum: 83b6b2095eb203d7845ab2b54f18f709
ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ASG/v7/beta/u2d-sys-7.450-460.tgz.gpg

ISO (software):
----------------
Size : 527144960
Md5sum: 15e8fedb8a5377cf47a37815699bc359
ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ASG/v7/beta/asg-7.460-090618-4.iso

ISO (hardware appliances):
----------------
Size : 550610944 bytes
Md5sum: b0a5e9141f9cfeee9b9310c6be1055f3
ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ASG/v7/beta/ssi-7.460-090618-4.iso

Thank you for your continued testing and feedback!

Regards,
Your Astaro Teams

Major New Things
Intrusion Protection Performance
*Uses new version of the IPS engine
*Scales massively when used with Multi-Core CPU/Appliances

Real-Time Bandwidth Monitor
*New Interface utilization bars on Dashboard (setup scale via editing the Interface and filling in new parameters for Upload/Download)
*Click for detailed overview as to "whats happening in my network right now"

Import/Export Widget
*Gives the ability to work with manual lists for many features/fields
*Useful to import a large blacklist (for example) into the URL Blacklist
*Can been seen in many user-input boxes in Web, Mail and more. (Green Up/Down Arrows)

Transparent Authentication Support for Web Security
*Allows users to authenticate against a Portal-Style page
*Allows for username based tracking, reporting, and surfing without changing browser settings
*Currently logo can be customized. Text,HTML, and further customizations planned for a later time.
*Configurable Timeout via HTTP-->Advanced. (Default 900s)

Clone Objects
*Easily duplicate existing objects for quick re-use.
*Supported in most places for many objects (Definitions, Services, Certain Profiles/Actions)

Extended Network Security Reporting
*Added Detailed Packet Filter/Firewall Reports
*Added Detailed IM/P2P Reports

Reputation Support for Web Security
*Allows use of the trustedsource.org reputation for Web Filtering
*Documentation coming, for now visit their site/FAQ for more info on reputations

DHCP Improvements
*Automatically map a current lease to a static assignment
*Limit DHCP leases to those with static assignments only
*Configurable DHCP lease time
*Servers retain configuration when enabled/disabled

Multicast Routing Daemon
*PIM-SM Routing support
*More documentation on this implementation to come. Experiment with it and if it solves your needs.

Other New Things
*Windows SSL VPN Upgraded - New Client which supports X64 and many other options (download again via the UserPortal)
*Improved HTTP Caching - Increases hit/usage rates and makes the cache more effective.
*Quarantine/UserPortal Usability - Adds navigation to the bottom (supplementing the existing controls at the top), large amounts (250-1000) of displayed items per page, and sorting by subject line.
*Default Definition for "Internet" - Allows to specify "Internet" as an object which will exclude internal network(s) to aid policy creation (0.0.0.0/0 on Gateway interface)
*Customizable Shortcuts - Change the default Ctrl assignments to fit your preference
*Improved Definition/Services Sidebar - Mouseover now instantly shows full name and extended info to aid identifying desired object for drag 'n drop.
*User List shows static IP's - if assigned/configured (no need to edit in order to view)
*Live Log Negation - use to filter live logs to not show lines that match "-" entries i.e. -test to remove lines containing "test"
*Console/SSH Logins Trigger a notification - provides admin the needed insight when accessed.
*Instant Email Backup - Button for every created backup file which allows it to be sent immediately via email to configured addresses
*Custom text for notifications - Allows easier identification of which installation is sending the message. Especially useful if managing multiple sites using notifiers.
*Test NTP Sync - Button to immediately poll the configured NTP server
*Automatic Backup before Up2Date install
*Configurable Default for Lists - Allows for the amount of items per page (Packet Filter Rules, or anywhere there is a number amounts drop down) to have a larger default view
*Cluster/HA Serial Number View - Information on connected units made easier
*Schedule Firmware Installation - When an Up2Date for Firmware is available, you can schedule it to auto-install at a certain time (not a recurring setting)
*WebAdmin Network Section Split - Now two sections; "Network" and "Network Services" for usability.
*Search Boxes Retain Data - No need to re-enter query when returning from a drill down/result click.
*System Restart Reason - Allows logging of "why was system restarted" in the notification
*Group Tool tips for Members - Easily discern Network/Service Group members without having to edit in order to view
*Reporting Exclusions - Used to remove unwanted entries from various reports (such as Google-analytics from Web Security tables
*Log Flag for NAT Rules - Similar to packet filter, tells you which NAT rule was matched as part of traffic handling
Masquerading for Additional IP Addresses - Allows the use of Masquerading (vs. just SNAT) for additional IP's bound to an interface
*Support for Multiple Authentication Servers - The authentication server section has been redesigned to support fallback/failover in an easier format, with many usability improvements
*SNMP MIB - Downloadable via the SNMP section of WebAdmin
Up2date Status Reworked - Clarifies the current status of a Firmware Up2date to avoid confusion regarding the availability, download progress etc...of an issued Up2date.
*Inline/Snap Report Links - Directly moves the Admin to the relevant details report when browsing the embedded daily reports located throughout WebAdmin
*Global POP3 Sender Blacklist - Quarantined as "other" in the QM/EUP
*Dashboard RSS Feed - Provides visibility to select Astaro-issued items via WebAdmin
*Other magic features, enhancements, and usability improvements

Beta Program Information & Download Links
Known-Issues
* Online help & associated documentation has not been updated for new or changed features (yet).
* Other FTP Locations will be online as our system spreads them to ftp.astaro.com and other mirrors (ftp2.astaro.com, ftp2.astaro.de etc...)

Download
This initial Beta version can only be tested through a new installation, i.e. by downloading and installing the complete ISO image. You cannot upgrade an existing production installation with a Beta up2date package. It is possible to restore a backup from an earlier version (up to 7.403) into your new Beta machine. We will make every effort to ensure Beta participants are able to Up2Date to the final GA version once it is released without re-installing.

Beta Download: Software ISO-Image for your own X86 hardware
http://download-cdn.astaro.com/asg-beta/asg-7.450-090529-2.iso
Size: 500MB
Beta Download: ISO Image for ASG Hardware Appliances
http://download-cdn.astaro.com/asg-beta/ssi-7.450-090529-2.iso
Size: 524MB

These links are directly to this release's ISO images. You can always find the various files, updates, and MD5's for this beta at ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ASG/v7/beta

How to be a Beta Tester
A large amount of factors contributes to the best level of perfection for Astaro products in varied production environments. The following sections will provide all the information you need to download, install and test the ASG V7.5 Beta.

Testing Period
May 29th - July 15th (estimated)

Limitations and Hints
- As with all Beta software, this release is not yet final and should not be considered an indication of stability, quality, or performance that will be delivered in the GA release of ASG V7.5. If you are using this Beta as part of an evaluation or while considering a purchase, please allow Astaro or the appropriate partner to address any concerns you may have before finalizing your decision based on a Beta release. Further, this Beta will not be supported in ANY way via Astaro's support teams, and using it in production environments may cause downtime, issues, or troubles. We therefore discourage running the Beta at sites which cannot afford the negative aspects of running Beta software.
- An ASG V7.5 manual and complete Online Help will be available with the GA release, along with other AxG versions of 7.500.

Feedback
Please post all Beta feedback (no matter how big or small) and discuss any of the ASG V7.5 Beta features on our User Bulletin Board in the "BETA Version" forum.

Your Efforts Rewarded!
Your feedback is closely reviewed and treated with priority by many members of our various teams here at Astaro. It allows us to deliver a final product to you of the highest quality. As a result, participants in our Beta Program for ASG V7.5 will have the chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards totaling over 600 dollars. Please qualify by actively posting and participating in discussions on our Beta version forum on our User Bulletin Board for details.

Special Home User Keys
In addition, we will offer active testers a specially enhanced home-user license which allows the full protection of up to 50 IP addresses (vs. the normal 10). These user keys are awarded after the GA release of 7.500, and are based on user activity, feedback, and general contribution to the Beta phase at our sole discretion.

Regards,

-Your Astaro Product Management Team

Whether you are an Astaro home user, customer, partner, distributor, or have yet to upgrade to Astaro from another product and improved your company with our solution, we welcome your feedback and ideas!

You will receive a status report from the system which will automatically keep you informed about features which are relevant to you. Your voting points will be returned as features are accepted and implemented.

Why is this Approach Beneficial?
This process allows us an improved insight into what features are greatly desired by our audience and enables us to continue developing the product with you in mind.

Where Do I Access this System?
Already have something on your mind? No matter how large or small, we want to hear it! You may access the beta version of the new site here:http://feature.astaro.com.
We have done our best to implement the most significant entries from the old database. If one of your entries does not appear in the search results and you feel that it was of value, please don't hesitate to add it in today.

Help us support our product improvement initiative by spreading the word to your colleagues and friends!

With kind regards,
Your Astaro Team

However, with this Worm's ability to spread multiple ways, such as the TCP and UDP transfer of the payload, Virus scanning at the gateway should be bolstered by Intrusion Protection to offer a more complete security defense against Conficker. Read on for details as to how Astaro can aid you in fighting this worm!

Ensure You Are Protected
To ensure you are protecting your network using these new patterns, in WebAdmin go to Network Security-->Intrusion Protection-->then the "Attack Patterns" Tab. From there, ensure the pattern group "Windows" under Operating System Specific Attacks is checked, and the action is set to "Drop".

Forensic Information via Logs
In the logging system for Intrusion Protection, if you would like to search for Conficker A/B attacks, simply search for the appropriate rule ID. A logfile entry will look like the below upon a pattern recognition:

1. A conficker.a shellcode with SID 2000011 Group 110
2. "A conficker.b shellcode" with SID 2000022 Group 110

As always, if you have any questions about Astaro protecting you against Conficker, or any threats, let us know on our Online Forums or place a ticket with Astaro Support.

Cheers,

The Astaro Product Management Team

The Astaro Command Center is an entirely free product that allows you to centrally monitor and maintain multiple Astaro installations & devices. If you currently are responsible for more than one Astaro Gateway product, ACC is designed for you! Read on for more information.

ACC is presented in the same administrative style as our AxG Version 7 WebAdmin, so that if you are new to ACC you will have no trouble getting started within a familiar looking environment.

Astaro Command Center 2.0 Features
IPSec VPN configuration wizard
* allows set-up of site-to-site connectivity with only a few clicks
* supports RSA based authentication for high security environments
* offers the same proven and efficient IPSec policy definitions as known from the ASG
* supports static and dynamic IPSec connections (initiate, respond-only)
* automatically imports locally accessible interface networks from selected devices
* already-deployed VPNs can later be modified with the same wizard

IPSec VPN monitoring overview
* shows VPNs currently managed by ACC
* allows re-configuration of VPNs
- enable/disable VPNs
- delete existing VPNs
* "at-a-glance" information covering:
- tunnel status
- deployment status
- meta information (policy, auth-method, number of tunnels and devices)

IPSec VPN monitoring details
* shows exact data on tunnel status, deployment, meta information
* displays which devices are interconnected for this VPN

Extended Access Control
* introduces an abstract "Configuration" role which can be assigned for different devices
* defines which users can change current and future configuration settings

Licensing
* There is currently no change in the ACC's FREE licensing model
* The newly introduced configuration features are NOT enforced or restricted in any way
* The free license can be used with the ACC V1.9/V2.0 software and virtual appliance
* The free license is now valid until the end of 2009
* Licenses for hardware appliances have not changed

Requirements
* The new features in ACC V2 require at least an ASG 7.400
* The AMG/AWG line of products do not provide IPSec VPN functionality
* Future configuration features in ACC might be applicable to AMG/AWG products as well

Download
This new release is available as a software ISO image, a virtual machine, and ISO image for ACC appliances, along with Up2Date packages from ACC 1.903 and the ACC 1.980 BETA:
------------------------------
ACC ISO (Software Appliance):
URL: ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ACC/v2/software_appliance/iso/acc-2.000-090318-1.iso
Size: 479 MB (501.420.032 bytes)
Md5sum: 5db3a29351fdf1d2e76627fa9ebc8e4e
------------------------------
ACC ISO (Multi-Point Appliance):
URL: ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ACC/v2/hardware_appliance/iso/sci-2.000-090318-1.iso
Size: 495 MB (518.197.248 bytes)
Md5sum: c99cafcaf22ad250040785b17e24aae5
-----------------------
ACC Vmware ESX3 image:
URL: ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ACC/v2/virtual_appliance/acc-2.000-ESX-v3.zip
Size: 1052 MB (1.103.420.088 bytes)
Md5sum: 37647bafc410c40662c7ee8a8fb9a233
---------------------
Up2Date 1.903-2.000:
URL: ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ACC/v1.9/up2date/u2d-sys-2.000.tgz.gpg
Size: 261 MB (273.855.332 bytes)
Md5sum: a136901d14180234b26f67f1ad7c3bfd
---------------------------------------------
Up2Date 1.980-2.000 (for ACC V2 Beta users):
URL: ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ACC/v2/beta/u2d-sys-2.000.tgz.gpg
Size: 121 MB (127.271.915 bytes)
Md5sum: c49b38dcf40982dc767f5059e175005c

Astaro ACC Download Mirrors:
- Astaro US
- Astaro US2
- Astaro Germany
- Astaro Germany2

If you want to provide feedback or want to discuss any of the ACC V2 features you should post it on our User Bulletin Board. Please take care to always(!) add the version you refer to (e.g. "[2.00] IPSEC Tunnel Wizard...").
If you have feedback to our documentation (Online Help) please send it to docu@astaro.com.
There is also a demo server which will run ACC Version 2 in the near future: http://accdemo.astaro.com
For further information, you can read the ACC V2 Release Notes here.

Regards,

- Your Astaro R&D and Product Management Teams

This release keeps us on track for ACC 2.000 being generally available during the 3rd week of March if the schedule proceeds as planned. You can see our previous announcement for all the BETA details.

This Up2Date 1.980 is a bug fix and progression release based on the feedback of our testing community which enhances the stability and performance of the Astaro Command Center BETA.

Other Astaro Command Center BETA Files:
1.980 (Up2Date for all Existing Beta Testers)
--------------------------------------------------
MD5sum: fd512eee49f9fe1f438a3ad9642e726b
Size: 45.827.679 bytes (44 MB)

Full 1.980 BETA Software ISO Image
---------
URL : ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ACC/v2/beta/acc-1.980-090311-1.iso
Size : 477 MB (499.849.216 bytes)
Md5sum: 38dd4292bf24d25d96a652a73d9b75ca

Up2Date from Stable1.903 to BETA 1.950:
---------------------
URL : ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ACC/v2/beta/u2d-sys-1.980.tgz.gpg
Size : 44 MB (45.827.679 bytes)
Md5sum: fd512eee49f9fe1f438a3ad9642e726b

ACC V2.000 Beta Program Details
For full details about the ACC 2.000 Beta, please see our initial announcement here, and we'd like to encourage all testers to report their experiences at our Beta Forums.

An Important Word about BETA Releases
We realize many features of this upcoming release are things you may be eagerly awaiting. While we do love to have as many users and installations as possible testing and providing feedback, in environments where uptime is crucial, consider that BETA releases can contain severe bugs and otherwise cause operational concerns! Most importantly, BETA versions are not reliable indicators of the final quality/stability of a formal, general release version.

All Up2Dates are GNUPG-signed!

Your Astaro R&D team

During the 3-day window where the Up2Date was available we had a small number of cases where the upgrade process took longer than was acceptable. To spare other users from experiencing this issue, we decided to withdraw the Up2Date. We have identified the cause of the problem and, assuming testing goes according to expectations, we'll re-release 7.400 in the course of next week.

We will keep you informed via this blog with any other news or developments.

If you have already downloaded and successfully installed 7.400, there is no need for any action/re-install on your part.

I am a customer, what should i do now?
All users that have already installed the up2date and the system rebooted fine, you have no problem. Just continue using it.

All users that have not yet installed the up2date, please wait for now.
The ASG will automatically delete the current up2date package and will download the new one once it is ready.

All users that have installed the up2date and are experiencing problems, please be either patient or contact the astaro support team, which will help you to overcome the situation.

Thank you for your understanding
Gert Hansen

after the release of 7.400 we have receive lots of positive feedback from customers who love the new functionality.

Besides all the good news our support teams have identified a potential issue on bigger installations.

After the successful installation of 7.400, the system needs to upgrade the reporting database during the next boot up. This process can take from few minutes up to two hours, during this process the system is not fully operational.

Please do not power down or restart the system during this process as in worst case it can cause data loss through database corruption and it will not speed up this process.
If you have a system in that state, please just be patient, the system will boot up properly after the database upgrade has been finished

In order to minimize the downtime cause by this, we suggest to schedule the installation to non-business hours.

If you want to accelerate this process you can reduce the size of your database by deleting older entries.
In order to do so, you need to change the Reporting Settings in
WebAdmin > Reporting > Settings > Settings > Reporting Settings.

There you can disable reports you don't need as well as lower the duration how long reporting data is retained. The smaller you configure the duration, the less data will be in the database and the faster the upgrade process will be finished.

After making changes to these settings, you have to wait at least 12-18 hours, as the database maintenance process runs twice a day, which than will do the reduction of the database size. During this process, the system is fully operational.

If you have further question, please don't hesitate to contact your Astaro Partner or us directly.

Best regards
Gert Hansen