Microsofts Stealth Updates

[stumonster]

as has been noted online in the last week , microsoft rolled out a stealth update to all users of xp and vista.

this update happened even if if you had automatic updates turned off - and it did not seem to register on my firewall ( comodo ) except as "system" - all those svchost processes.

I restarted my machine today after being up for a week or so and on startup after having the desktop for a couple of minutes , the machine BSODed and restarted - this happened 3 times in all.

after the first time I checked the running processes on the next startup and saw wuauclt.exe which was a process that was out of the ordinary. A search online told me it was the microsoft updater program.

since this stealth update my firefox install has stopped working properly. My extensions/plugins seem to have frozen .

I have not found anything else to be a problem yet , but will check when I have a bit more time.

I am not impressed that my hardware and OS seems not to be within my control .

some more info here - but horrible colours

http://os9user.blogspot.com/2007/09/micros...ing-system.html

[RKASA]

I told people in this forum last month, that right after getting an update from MS I lost port 80. I then saw someone vai another port and remote control fix the problem which included doing a restart right before my eyes. I don't think anyone beleaved me. Maybe now they can see what I was talking about. It should be noted that people in several other forums had the same events late that nite. No kidding.

one of my comments that nite was WOW! What just happened.

[Crushdepth]

I'd be thinking about scorching my hard drive and doing a clean install if something like that happened. Maybe, check you have remote login/assistance disabled?

[RKASA]

That was the first resent thing that happened. A few days back every time I started the PC the drive would hunt like crazy. After checking several things I found updates in the q I didn't know had downloaded, and they would not install. I had to check them out because auto update is off. After seeing that they did in fact come from MS I found the reason they did not install was a bad cluster 14180 related to ieframes.dll after running the chkdk it was repaired and the updates installed, but they were trying to put them in without permission as updates are not and have not been auto. The other updates I had problem with before that were in fact from MS as well and it was MS in my PC shorty there after. I had been in the forums with my LINUX box trying to find info to fix the port 80 problem with when it started getting fixed on its own, and I don't see why anybody else would take the time to do such a fine job. Its firewalled and AV protected, but MS can get into any MS box they want anytime. Just like the des keys which allow the us gov to open any des device made its a NSA requirement for licencing. I spend more and more time with LINUX and have more and more reason to. Linux is not half as sucure as people would have you beleave, but at least it is ten time more secure then windows will ever be.

[MikeWill]

... microsoft rolled out a stealth update to all users of xp and vista.

this update happened even if you had automatic updates turned off - and it did not seem to register on my firewall ( comodo ) except as "system" - all those svchost processes.

I restarted my machine today after being up for a week or so and on startup after having the desktop for a couple of minutes , the machine BSODed and restarted - this happened 3 times in all.

after the first time I checked the running processes on the next startup and saw wuauclt.exe which was a process that was out of the ordinary. A search online told me it was the microsoft updater program.

since this stealth update my firefox install has stopped working properly. My extensions/plugins seem to have frozen .

I have not found anything else to be a problem yet , but will check when I have a bit more time.

I am not impressed that my hardware and OS seems not to be within my control .

some more info here - but horrible colours

http://os9user.blogspot.com/2007/09/micros...ing-system.html

There is an interesting story called "Microsoft updates Windows without users' consent" in the recent Windows Secrets newsletter. You can check it out here.

[stumonster]

I had thought this was just a vista issue - but now I think it is all MS operating systems

time to go full time to slackware and virtual machines

[cdnvic]

I was listening to Paul Thurotte's podcast today and he suspects this may be fixing a security issue that they did not want to broadcast until as many machines as possible were patched so keep your eyes open for an explanation sometime this week.

http://www.twit.tv/ww35

Anything else and they deserve a good kicking.

[nikster]

After seeing that they did in fact come from MS I found the reason they did not install was a bad cluster 14180 related to ieframes.dll after running the chkdk it was repaired ...

RKASA if you have bad clusters your HD may be about to go very soon. Time to replace it.

I agree with cdnvic - I sure hope MS fixed some hole in the windows updating system with this, it would be the only semi-valid excuse for this behavior.

But what is more worrisome is that MS apparently included a backdoor in Windows whereby they _can_ update your system without your knowledge. And that, I find much scarier. Think about it - you turned off auto-updates, but it still updates some stuff! How?? Something must have talked to the MS servers, and initiated an auto-update without your consent or knowledge. No one knew, until now, that Microsoft can do this.

Luckily, I mostly run Windows where it belongs these days, in a little window of my desktop.

[MikeWill]

Anything else and they deserve a good kicking.

The one above isn't enough?

Who will do the kicking?

Edited September 19, 2007 by Condo_bk

[stumonster]

he suspects this may be fixing a security issue that they did not want to broadcast

that MS apparently included a backdoor in Windows whereby they _can_ update your system without your knowledge

as nikster pointed out - any backdoor is a security issue - so unless this patch fixed it the whole show is fcuked

[cdnvic]

Anything else and they deserve a good kicking.

The one above isn't enough?

If they did it to protect machines without disclosing a major security issue then it's understandable. Announcing that there's a problem and asking people to patch their systems just invites the bad guys to grab the patch and reverse engineer it into an exploit.

Who will do the kicking?

The court has to decide soon whether or not to extend the anti-trust sanctions imposed on Microsoft in 2002.

[stumonster]

grab the patch and reverse engineer it into an exploit.

though now it is known there is a private microsoft back door into the OS someone can just put an non "stealthed patched" machine on the internet and log the whole transaction with a packet sniffer and produce something that could be very detrimental to anyone running a microsoft OS.

unless this patch fixed the backdoor microsoft used ( there could be many more there for further use ) it has opened a far larger can of worms.