Sorry for the late reply, I have not had the time to reply. And that I have much to reply. With the settings you posted, it should work. There is...

Sorry, I managed to mix up the catalog views. It's the output from sys.linked_logins we need to see. On VORTEX. The settings on the target server are not of interest.

Can you post the output from sys.servers and sys.remote_logins for this servers, so that we get an understanding of your current status?

The login you set up in the login mapping must be an SQL Server login. You cannot login to SQL Server windows login and password. To login to SQL Server...

If there is no record of the successful login from the intruder, it is difficult to track.

But unless sa had a blank password or something else guess at first attempt,...

Keeping the network engineer in a leash sounds like a good start. :--)

Disabling sa is also a good start. Disabling SQL authentication is even better for accidents like this, but...

Yes, sa could create an executable file on the server. For instance by first inserting the binary string into a table, and the exporting it to file with BCP through...

I see that Barry already has attempted to answer your questions, so I will not try to since there are so many of them. 🙂

However, in this article on my...

This thread is also going on at

http://social.Msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlsecurity/thread/34454614-93b9-4d22-842d-cccf25f46849#34454614-93b9-4d22-842d-cccf25f46849

There is not much I know about SSIS,...

It still not clear to me: does SSIS connect directly to your site? Or does it connect to a server at the client where it inserts data into a table...

Hm, exactly which connections did you specify to be encrypted? You talk both about SSIS and a linked server, and that's definitely two different things. If you move data through...

I will have to admit that I have not worked much with encrypted connections. But from what I read in Books Online, it should be possible. You need to set...

When you create the linked server, you need to provide "Encrypt=yes" in the @provstr argument to sp_addlinkedserver. Obviously, both servers need to have the same certificate for the encryption to...

What is the architecture of the application? Web app? Three-tier with a separate application server? Or does the user run the application from his desktop and the application connects directly...