Details has been released about the patches that Microsoft will release for next week.

There will be a total of five patches and all of them will have a rating of “critical” which is the highest rating on their rating scale. One will be related to the Microsoft Content Management Server.

Along with these security updates, two non-security patches will also be released for Windows operating systems and four for Windows Server operating systems.

An updated Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal tool which can identify if user’s computer has a virus will also be released by Tuesday.

The day after next tuesday, Microsoft will hold its regular webcast called TechNet Webcast which will discuss these series of patches.

Source: Ars Technica

IT requirements are becoming more and more complex, and, as they do so, computer consumers (or businesses) are able to put together packages for their needs based on services they have provided for them or to them in a variety of ways. This is known as outsourcing, and, currently, the trend is for it to be outsourced to another country - which then becomes ‘Offshoring’.
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Microsoft has just released a patch which fixes the bug that is related to animated cursors in their Windows operating systems. The patch also fixes six other flaws in Windows.

There is no estimate on how many people were affected about the animated cursor flaw situation.

The other flaws/vulnerabilities that were fixed are:
-GDI Local Elevation of Privilege
-WMF Denial of Service
-EMF Elevation of Privilege
-GDI Invalid Windows Size Elevation of Privilege
-GDI Incorrect Parameter Elevation of Privilege
-Font Rasterizer Local Elevation of Privilege

Even though Microsoft has released an “out-of-cycle” patch, users can expect that they will release more patches next week which is part of their normal schedule.

Source: IT Jungle

There are plenty of utilities out there to backup your Internet Explorer or Outlook Express settings but very few for Mozilla Products. MozBackup is a free utility for backing up Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Mozilla Suite and Netscape profiles. Since more and more households are adopting Firefox and Thunderbird, this tool will help speed up the backup and restore process.
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A blog has posted files which are expected to be included in the first Service Pack (SP1) release from Microsoft.

The blog owner, Ethan Allen, said that he received these files from a person who is close to Microsoft.

The SP1 is currently in the testing phase according to sources who are close to Microsoft. There is no official definitive date yet on when they will be release to the public but it will be release in the second half of 2007.

Some files which will be in the SP1 include device drivers and software compatibility technology which should have came with the operating system. These includes third-party USB and Firewire devices.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

Alexander Sotirov of Determina Inc said that Mozilla’s internet browser, Firefox 2.0 is also vulnerable with the recent news about the animated cursor flaw. He had notified Microsoft about this flaw last December. Yesterday, he posted a demonstration about a hijack which involves PCs that use Firefox.

“It turns out that Firefox uses the same vulnerable Windows component to process .ani files, which can be exploited in a way similar to Internet Explorer,” said Sotirov

When an attack occurs on Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7, the attackers will have the capability of accessing all files in the system.

Mozilla has not yet made a comment about this news.

Source: Computerworld

Microsoft has released a statement that said they will patch the animated cursor flaw this week.

Originally, Microsoft planned to release a patch during one of its monthly update but the flaw became so severe that they rushed to make a patch for it so Windows operating system users can be safe from the flaw.

Blocking .ani files will not work according to Microsoft since hackers are renaming the malicious files.

Microsoft advised that those who use their Outlook Express software should read their emails in plain text form (i.e. not in html format).

A security company called eEye Digital Security Inc has released an unofficial patch to protect users from the flaw.

Source: Earthtimes.org

Once upon a time there lived a PC who killed video cards. He was a nice, quiet PC, middle aged and had always performed his duties well. At some point he changed though. He went through several video cards without regard to brand or price and eventually a lengthy investigation uncovered the defect in him responsible. It was his power supply…..
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A news has been released that there have been more attacks reported just after the news break out about the animated cursor flaw in Windows operating systems.

“Overnight we did see the attacks change from limited and targeted attacks to slightly more, but do still categorize it as a limited attack,” said Mark Miller who is the director of Microsoft’s response group.

The zero-day attack is targeted on users who are using Microsoft’s latest operating system, Vista.

People at McAfee saw a post on a Chinese forum that hackers were planning on exploiting the flaw last Wednesday.

The attacks are limited to Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 according to Miller.

Source: The China Post

A new worm is spreading on the internet which advertises itself as Internet Explorer 7 in beta version.

The Register reports that this worm may come from emails which has a sender name called admin@microsoft.com and the subject is “Internet Explorer 7 Downloads.” The file that is attached on the message is ie7.0.exe and the worm that infected this file is called Grum-A worm. The beta 2 version of IE7 was released by Microsoft a year ago.

This was not the first time that a worm disguised itself as a file which is affiliated with Microsoft. A worm in 2003 posed as an update and it fooled many users. There was a case where hackers directed surfers to a bogus Microsoft website.

Source: The Register