Critical Windows Update 17 December 2008

[Tung_Thaid]

A news item today in Australia - Sydney Morning Herald Microsoft fast tracks emergency patch to plug critical security hole

The full article at:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/secu...9189672449.html

The basics:

December 17, 2008 - 11:44AM

Microsoft will release an emergency patch later today to fix a perilous software flaw allowing hackers to hijack Internet Explorer browsers and take over computers.

The US software giant said on Tuesday that in response to "the threat to customers" it immediately mobilized security engineering teams worldwide to deliver a software cure "in the unprecedented time of eight days."

According to researchers at software security firm Trend Micro, attacks based on the vulnerability in the world's most popular web browser are spreading "like wildfire" with millions of computers already compromised.

The "zero-day" vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims' machines simply by steering them to infected websites; users don't have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer's programming code so dangerous.

Microsoft said it plans to ship a security update, rated "critical," for the browser on Wednesday. People with the Windows Update feature activated on their computers will get the patch automatically.

"When the patch is released people should run, not walk, to get it installed," said Trend Micro advanced threat researcher Paul Ferguson.

"This vulnerability is being actively exploited by cyber-criminals and getting worse every day."

[fatenglishman]

When it comes to internet browsers I've always stayed well away from Internet Explorer, the vulnerability of that dam_n browser is just crazy, and instead of fixing the problems and plugging these holes they've always tried to launch new versions...

At the moment my favourite is Firefox...

Can't really say Chrome (from Google) is any good yet, especially because they use the whole "its a totally free service we provide" banner to get data and information out of our usage and habits.

Not that anyone asked but thats my two pence