Windows Newest Major Vulnerability

[locustfurnace]

According to yahoo another new exploit is found in windows, yet another one!.
time to patch all versions, since this is a major flaw.

Sat Jul 26, 7:00 PM ET
"The program, released nine days after Microsoft Corp. announced the flaw, has turned an embarrassment for the company and inconvenience for customers into a near-emergency.

The program, posted on the group's Web site, takes advantage of a vulnerability in nearly all versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system, including Windows Server 2003, touted as Microsoft's safest ever.

The flaw is an embarrassment to a company that has dedicated millions of dollars to its highly trumpeted Trustworthy Computing initiative, in which Microsoft has been emphasizing security in writing code.

read the rest of the story here

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid..._flaw&printer=1

[guest_The_Muffin_Man]

Just one more reason not to use Windows...and yet another reason I hate NeoMagic videocards and their inability to work with KDE/Gnome. But I have no reason to worry, because....

Quote: "So far, Microsoft has not heard of any instances of the code being used. Microsoft said companies with strong firewalls commonly block the type of data connections that outside hackers would need for such attacks."

So there.

[locustfurnace]

Originally posted by guest_The_Muffin_Man@Jul 28 2003, 05:49 PM
Just one more reason not to use Windows...and yet another reason I hate NeoMagic videocards and their inability to work with KDE/Gnome. But I have no reason to worry, because....

Quote: "So far, Microsoft has not heard of any instances of the code being used. Microsoft said companies with strong firewalls commonly block the type of data connections that outside hackers would need for such attacks."

So there.

You mean X-Window (XF86) not KDE, KDE is the window manager, you need a video card that supports X.

and second, you believe Micorsoft? They have not HEARD, because they never LISTEN to anything. accoding to them their latest windows 2003 server was supposed to be very secure. well now we learn it is not so. so i would not believe anything from them.

c.1996 Bloomberg Business News

(Bloomberg Business News )QUESTION: I read in a newspaper that in 1981 you said, ``640K of memory should be enough for anybody.'' What did you mean when you said this?

(Bill Gates) ANSWER: I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.

yea.

Microsoft is truthful and upfront and always honest. Honestly they are.

and let me add this as well:

Posted: 24/07/2003 at 07:40 GMT

Microsoft yesterday warned of security flaws with DirectX's DirectShow component that might be used by an attacker to run hostile code on vulnerable Windows machines.

Redmond has issued a patch - designated as critical - which users are urged to review.

The list of affected software is extensive: Microsoft DirectX 5.2 on Windows 98; MS DirectX 6.1 on Windows 98 SE; DirectX 7.0a and DirectX 9.0a on Windows Me; DirectX and DirectX 9.0a 7.0 on Win 2000; DirectX 8.1 and DirectX 9.0a on Win XP; DirectX 8.1 and DirectX 9.0a on Win Server 2003 are all potentially vulnerable.

2 critical patches in days.

and another

Severe Windows security hole patched
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 17/07/2003 at 12:39 GMT



Every version of Windows with the exception of ME (and including the "Trustworthy Computing" engineered Windows Server 2003) has a nasty stuff-up in the RPC (remote procedure call) process, which yields complete system ownership to a third party.

RPC allows a program running on one computer to execute code on a remote system. This can be quite useful, particularly for networked machines sharing a printer over a LAN, say. In the case of Windows, the RPC service listens on port 135 for instruction.

In this case a buffer overflow can cause the preocess to panic in such a way as to transfer ownership of the machine. The actual culprit is a DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) interface with RPC. In any case, RPC should never be showing itself to the Internet so firewalls for Windows systems should always be set to block port 135. Note that RPC cannot be safely disabled on Windows as it can on *nix. However there are patches now so all is well.

I would just be careful and patch no matter what.