Tag: PATCH

If someone were to ask you what Microsoft's biggest competition is on the operating system front is, what would your guess be? OSX? No. Linux? Sorry, but no. Truth is, it's unlicensed Windows. So when you're developing a new operating system with a wide array of modern features, it's probably best to take a hard line against piracy, right? Maybe not. Paul Cooke, Microsoft's director of Windows ...

Just because it's relatively quiet on Patch Tuesday doesn't mean the one bulletin that was released should be ignored. Microsoft today issued MS09-001 to address a critical vulnerability in the SMB protocol that could allow an attacker free reign to cause havoc via the NetBIOS ports (139 and 445). According to Microsoft, "an attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could install ...

The Firefox web browser does a great job of alerting you when there are critical updates available. But how about the dozens or hundreds of other programs you've installed on your computer? Software security firm Secunia's Personal Software Inspector (PSI) is a free application that alerts you when updates are available for your programs. When you install PSI it will scan your computer for ...

Opera has made some great strides in the browser wars recently, with amazing support for Windows Mobile devices and the Nintendo Wii video game console. Opera 9.2 for the PC also adds some nifty new features like a Speed Dial function that lets you set 9 different pages as a sort of home page. But Opera still has a fairly small share of the browser market, and developers often don't think ...

Okay, seriously, I promise this is (one of) the last time(s) we'll be talking about the upcoming Daylight Saving Time change. A quick refresher, Congress passed a law moving up Daylight Saving Time starting this year, so it begins on March 11th, meaning you have to change your clocks much earlier this year than you're used to. While your computer will probably automatically adjust itself, if ...

So you've got a snazzy Treo 680, but every time you whip it out to make a call or snap a photo, you realize that the battery's dead. Turns out there was a bug that allowed the camera to draw power from the battery even when the unit was in standby. Palm's issued a software patch for the problem. The fix is recommended for all Treo 680 users, but will not work with any other Treo models. You have ...

Microsoft is always under attack. This time around it's Powerpoint, again. Just a few days after patching bugs, PowerPoint was hit again. A Microsoft Security Program Manager was made aware of a proof of concept code that was affecting Microsoft Office 2003 PowerPoint, as well as PowerPoint 2000, and PowerPoint 2002. This hole allows for hackers to potentially execute code on a user's computer by ...

Symantec moved quickly to squash a security vulnerability in its AntiVirus Corporate Edition which was disclosed by eEye Digital Security last week, and according to CRN Australia an official fix is now being rolled out in the form of an IPS signature update. An unnamed executive from another security vendor, however, says they are "scratching their heads in disbelief" regarding the choice, ...

I was sure we wouldn't see a fix for this one until May's Patch Tuesday, but Microsoft has announced that the fix for the troublesome patch released two weeks ago will be available tomorrow, April 25, halfway through its usual patch cycle. Microsoft also has a knowledgebase article on the issue which basically says "it's the fault of this old third party software" and gives a few ...

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday last week meant a sigh of relief for sysadmins dreading the nasty Internet Explorer vulnerability discovered last month, but any relief was short-lived as the round of patches has apparently led to a plague of bugs and incompatibilities. Last week's patches are causing "causing system hangs, Windows crashes and the appearance of strange dialog boxes" and ...

Rather than wait two more weeks until Patch Tuesday as Microsoft has opted to do, two companies have released their own unofficial patches for the newly-disclosed Internet Explorer vulnerability that is rapidly being exploited in the wild. Security firms eEye and Determina have both announced the availability of unofficial hotfixes that they're touting as temporary solutions until Microsoft gets ...

Microsoft has confirmed that a newly-discovered vulnerability exists in Internet Explorer that the security companies are calling "significant" and "highly critical." Of course, you won't find such scary language on Microsoft's milquetoast advisory page, but the vulnerability (for which researchers have released proof-of-concept exploit code), allows malicious web sites to run ...

Rather than waiting until Tuesday to release a patch for the much-publicized WMF vulnerability as most have anticipated, Microsoft got its act together and released an official patch yesterday. You can download the patch from Microsoft here or from Windows Update. Unfortunately there's no patch for Windows NT and Windows 2000 (pre-SP4) users or Windows 98/ME users whom, Microsoft claims, aren't ...

After a long and very uncomfortable silence, Redmond has finally spoken out about the very serious WMF vulnerability that exists in all versions of Windows by updating their security advisory on the issue. In the new advisory they say their "goal" is to release a patch next Tuesday and suggest that people take the same action security experts have been recommending for a week: unregister ...

This one definitely falls into the at-your-own-risk category: A beta version of Windows Live Messenger 8, nee MSN Messenger, has been available for download from Microsoft.com for some time now, but without an invitation to the private beta test it has been impossible to use, until now. The trick is to use a recently-released "proxy patch" to fool the MSN network into thinking you're ...