Pursuant to CoinPayment Inc’s recent decision to withdraw from the US market, we are temporarily unable to accept cryptocurrency for any store purchases while we evaluate a replacement platform. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause, and want to assure everyone that we are working hard to get our crypto gateway back up and running as soon as possible.
Tag Archives: company
Apache Log4j vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228)
On Thursday, December 9, 2021, the Apache Log4j project disclosed a critical security vulnerability which may result in remote code execution on systems running Log4j. The exploit has been aptly named Log4Shell (CVE-2021-44228).
Log4j is a logging component which runs under Java on many different platforms, and is useful not only for Java applications, but for other programs, as well. It is commonly bundled with unrelated software, simply as a means of providing a standard logging engine.
Arca Noae has completed a scan of our internal systems and has determined that we are not affected by this vulnerability. Further, ArcaOS has never included any Log4j components, and is also unaffected. However, because the exploitable feature in Log4j has existed for some time, it is possible that Java and other applications may have been installed under ArcaOS which utilize Log4j, and these systems may be at risk.
The feature used for the Log4Shell exploit is in the JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface) lookup class which was added to Log4j several years ago during the 2.0 beta cycle. Log4j versions through 2.3 required only Java versions up to 1.6, and so may be utilized by some OS/2-compatible applications.
Risk assessment
To determine whether any of your OS/2 systems may be at risk, start by searching all accessible volumes for log4j-*.jar. If any are found, determine the version of Log4j by examining the content of META-INF/MANIFEST.MF in the core jar file:
[c:\] unzip -c log4j-core.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF | less
Note the Implementation-Version line content.
Edge servers as well as firewalled systems running various applications may be at risk, as queries may be submitted to the Log4j engine from other applications and potentially from outside the network.
Mitigation
Although the exploit has been addressed in Log4j 2.16.0, because versions above 2.3 are not currently compatible with OS/2’s available Java Runtime Engine, it is necessary to mitigate the condition by removing the JndiLookup class from the classpath, e.g.:
[c:\] zip -q -d log4j-core-*.jar org/apache/logging/log4j/core/lookup/JndiLookup.class
Additional information
Older (pre-2.0-beta9) versions of Log4j lack this lookup class, and do not appear to be at risk for Log4Shell (though some earlier security advisories may have been issued). Further research may be needed based upon the version(s) of Log4j which may be in use on these earlier systems. Also, this is not the only security advisory for Log4j 2.0-beta9 – 2.3. This notification is only related to CVE-2021-44228.
Links
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-44228
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2021/12/10/log4shell-java-vulnerability-how-to-safeguard-your-servers/
https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/930724
Subscription reminder notifications delayed
We recently became aware of an issue with our email reminders for subscription renewals which left a number of reminder messages unsent. These ultimately did go out, though some may have been too late to allow some customers to take advantage of early renewals.
If you had a subscription which came due for renewal between August 23 and September 22, and you subsequently renewed when you discovered your subscription had expired, thus missing the 10% early renewal discount, please contact Customer Service for an adjustment. Please also provide your order number when making your request.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.
Tune in to Warpstock 2021 Online
Warpstock 2021 will happen online at 12:00pm EDT (16:00 UTC) this Saturday, September 18.
Sessions will be a mix of live and prerecorded presentations, in 45-50-minute slots, scheduled to start on the hour.
David Azarewicz, Lewis Rosenthal, and Alex Taylor will be among those presenting this year on a variety of topics of interest concerning ArcaOS 5.0 and 5.1, device drivers, UEFI, GPT, and more.
Questions may be posed via YouTube Chat as well as IRC during the event.
The WarpEvents YouTube channel is the place to watch the event stream.
The URL for the #warpstock IRC channel is: ircs://irc.libera.chat:6697/warpstock (TLS encrypted),
or irc://irc.libera.chat/warpstock (plain text), or https://web.libera.chat/ (web interface, type #warpstock into Channel field).
The conference is entirely free this year, and no registration is necessary.
Join us for Warpstock Europe 2021 Online
Warpstock Europe 2021 will begin online at 14:00 UTC this coming Saturday, June 5. (For quick reference, that’s 10am EDT/7am PDT in the US and Canada, and 16:00 CET.)
Sessions will be a mix of live and prerecorded presentations, with the presenters available to answer questions in realtime, submitted during the event via IRC. See the Warpstock Europe website for details.
The Warpstock Europe YouTube channel is the place to watch the event stream. This channel should be viewable with any ArcaOS release, using Firefox or SeaMonkey, or any other device or OS you might want to use.
IRC Channel on Freenode: #WSE2021.
The conference is entirely free this year, and no registration is necessary.
Both Lewis Rosenthal and Alex Taylor will be among those presenting this year.
Announcement concerning recently discovered vulnerabilities in the SolarWinds Orion platform
There have been multiple news reports about the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) confirming that malicious threat actors have been and are actively exploiting vulnerabilities in SolarWinds Orion products, primarily by leveraging the SUNBURST malware.
SolarWinds Orion is an IT monitoring solution.
Arca Noae does not now, nor have we ever used any SolarWinds products. As a result, our customers’ information is not vulnerable to these exploits.
We strongly advise our enterprise clients who may be using the Orion platform to review available firewall updates to keep your internal systems secure. As always, Arca Noae stands ready to assist in assessing the overall security of your OS/2 infrastructure.
More information (including CVE links) may be found on the CISA page.
Tune in to Warpstock 2020 Online
Warpstock 2020 will happen online at 9:00am EST (14:00 UTC) this Saturday, November 7, for those in North America and western Europe, and sessions will repeat in a second block beginning at 8:00pm EST (01:00 UTC, Sunday, November 8) for those in the Asia/Pacific region and eastern Europe. Each block should only be 3-4 hours in length.
Sessions will be a mix of live and prerecorded presentations, with the presenters available to answer questions in realtime, submitted during the event via IRC or YouTube chat.
The WarpEvents YouTube channel is the place to watch the event stream. This channel should be viewable with any ArcaOS release, using Firefox or SeaMonkey, or any other device or OS you might want to use.
IRC Channel: irc://freenode/warpstock
The conference is entirely free this year, and no registration is necessary.
Both David Azarewicz and Lewis Rosenthal will be among those presenting this year.
Have a question? Be sure to read our FAQs
We’ve discussed the wealth of specific information available in our wiki pages in previous blog posts here and here, but there is still another resource available to get quick answers to “how do I…” and other questions: the Arca Noae FAQ.
Searching the FAQ is easy: just type one or more terms into the search box at the top. To browse questions and answers by category, select one of the available categories from the list, and scroll. Another way to search the entire Arca Noae website is to just use the site search box to the right of most pages.
If a FAQ answer has been helpful, please be sure to let us know by clicking the appropriate feedback link at the bottom.
If you happen to find something which doesn’t seem quite right (outdated or perhaps in need of further explanation), please drop us a note to let us know. If you have a suggestion for something to add, please tell us. We continually add questions as they are asked more frequently (hey, it’s a FAQ, after all), and we’ll be sure to consider any suggestions.
Just as the links to the wiki and the ticket system, the FAQ is available from the Support dropdown on the main menu.
Visited the Arca Noae wiki pages recently?
A few months ago, in another blog post, we discussed some things to do before opening a support ticket, including visiting the wiki pages to check for the latest technical and how-to information for your product.
These pages are regularly updated, so even if you’ve looked over them before, they’re worth a re-read.
Web searches are fine, but unfortunately, much of the available information pertaining to OS/2 is either dated or more specifically related to non-ArcaOS distributions or non-Arca Noae drivers. Your first, best place for information on Arca Noae products is right here.
If you happen to find something which doesn’t seem quite right (screenshots or directions outdated), please drop us a note to let us know. If you have a suggestion for something to add (a tip, how-to, or even a missing wiki), please tell us. We keep a running list of pages to update and add, and we’ll be sure to consider any requests we receive.
As always, and as frequently mentioned here, before opening a trouble ticket, be sure to check the wiki pages (self-help is often the best help).
Extended service outage due to Tropical Storm Isaias
All systems are back online as of 5:00am EDT, following a blackout which began at approximately 2:25pm EDT, yesterday.
Power, fiber optic broadband, and even wireless communications were impacted by yesterday’s passing of Isaias, rendering even the best of contingency plans inadequate. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.