JJ writes about SBS and Security

Jesper Johannsson is Senior Security Strategist at Microsoft. He writes for Technet and this month his article is on SBS and Security: It's All About Rick Management! Great article that summarizes what's in SBS and the pros/cons that others have on the SBS front. I've also heard it all before. SBS isn't secure, it's all on one box.

Folks it's exactly as JJ says, it's about Risk Management and what I propose, value for the SMB. No SMB wants to be caught with it's pants down when it comes to security. Is anyone asking for trouble out there? Well they certainly are if THEY AREN'T running SBS and something like W2K Pro or Windows 98 without patching. But if you've got SBS with Anti Virus and proper best practices in place it's hard to beat the security of SBS 2003. To me it's all relative to your price point and security consciousness.

Another consultant was kind enough to pass a lead over to us. The company does not desire any Internet mail to connectivity in the office except for a couple of computers. They don't want the hassle. Do they want sales? It's hard for me to fathom a business life anymore without constant email and web perusal for updating my own information and interacting with my customers. It's a necessity. Sure there might be a little more risk to having my email and getting spam or viruses into my inbox but does that justify shutting down my sales process? No way. Instead I manage it and make sure I have Anti Virus, Spam filters, and Best Practices in place to thwart anything that comes to me.

I think JJ sums it up nicely: "The point is not whether you can build something more secure than SBS. There are many that can, and a few that can build something that is as useful, or at least almost as useful, as SBS, and still at least as secure. The point is how much time, effort, and money it would cost you and how much functionality you would give up in the process. The truth is that most people would fail to build something that has the functionality or the security of SBS particularly if they tried to build it on a single system. To that extent, SBS actually significantly improves the security posture of the organizations it is designed to serve."

SBS you serve SMB's and you do it well!