As you may already be aware, the start and end dates for Daylight Savings Time (DST) in the United States, as well as several other countries, will be changing in 2007 as required by the “Energy Policy Act of 2005”. The new DST start date is March 11, 2007. To accommodate the DST change, most IT systems will need to be updated. Otherwise, timestamps will be off, and some applications may fail to work. Any U.S. time zone based application which uses time may be affected, especially during the additional weeks of extended Daylight Savings Time in March and November.

In many scenarios, computers attached to networks are patched on a regular basis, so the new DST rules taking effect won’t have much of an impact on those systems. However, many systems and devices, such as routers, servers, both networked and stand-alone, and/or devices associated with these systems will most likely need to be patched.

In addition, it is not enough to assume that if the servers have the correct time, the database and applications will work. Some applications are ‘system time aware’, and others require their own unique patches. The following scenarios and operations are common and will produce incorrect results, as a consequence of using the time offset by one hour.

• Time format and display
• Time zone name display
• Operations which check whether a particular date is in daylight savings time
• Computations and/or business logic based on daylight savings time, etc.
• Any of the above that run on a system whose time is set to a time zone other than the US time zone, but does computations based on a US time zone.

Stanley Security Solutions is committed to providing you with proactive solutions to these and other potential problems related to the Daylight Savings Time transition. The steps required in addressing these issues are:

1. Update all Microsoft Windows devices in the system using patches or methods supplied by Microsoft. Information on updating Windows is available from Microsoft at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx
2. Update manufacturer software. Many manufacturers plan on distributing self executable patches on their systems, such as Lenel OnGuard, Software House, Hirsch, and others. Stanley Security Solutions will make every effort to distribute these patches to the appropriate system owners, and make these patches available at our website at www.bestaccess.com when commercially available.

Should you require additional information, want to ensure you are listed on our distribution list for a particular system, or wish to schedule an on-site assessment, please contact our National Service Center at nsc@stanleyworks.com or 877-SS1-4YOU (877-771-4968).