New Microsoft Critical Patch
11 February. Critical flaw; MS recommends installing immediately as it could allow a remote user to take control of your machine. Deja vue.
Bruce
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Two new MyDoom viruses prowl
Two new MyDoom virus variants are doing the rounds, but seem only to be interested in computers already affected by the last round of MyDoom infections, reports Windows and .NET magazine. Unlike MyDoom.A and MyDoom.B, the new attacks don't spread via email attachment but rather prowl the Internet looking for MyDoom-compromised computers that haven't yet been inoculated. One starts a denial of service attack against Microsoft; the other removes MyDoom and ominously waits for further instructions.
Bruce
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Clean FrontPage shock!
Meryl Evans points out that Microsoft are advertising that FrontPage produces great, clean code - and shoot themselves in the foot. See line 28... Read MoreGeneral
Dot.coms bounce back
As investor confidence in hi-tech companies revives, the BBC's Money Programme finds that more of the original dot.coms made it through the stock market crash than was once thought. On revisiting these companies, it found that two-thirds of them are still in business. In fact, some are now thriving because competitors have closed, and there are more potential customers online. Read MoreGeneral
IE security patch released
Microsoft has released a patch for IE to cure several security flaws, including the Phishing Flaw. Get it while it's hot if you're running:
- Microsoft Windows NT® Workstation 4.0 Service Pack 6a
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Service Pack 6a
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, Service Pack 6
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 2, Service Pack 3, Service Pack 4
- Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1
- Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Service Pack 1
- Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Version 2003
- Microsoft Windows Server® 2003
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 64-Bit Edition
However, there's reports today (5/Feb/04) that the patch doesn't play nicely with other browser applications - and doesn't patch all the holes. My Accessibility toolbar inexplicably stopped working after I installed the IE patch with a "unable to parse toolbar definition file" error when re-starting IE.
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MyDoom kills SCO site, tickles Microsoft.com
CRN reports that the MyDoom-A virus killed SCO.com and forced the company to move their website to www.thescogroup.com, but the small number of computers infected with MyDoom-B (presumably because of all the media attention, even in consumer newspapers and TV news) ensured that www.microsoft.com survived the Denial of Service attack.
Bruce
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Critical ColdFusion patch released
ColdFusion MX 6.1 is vulnerable to a denial of service attack if a malicious user creates a ficticious request containing a large number of form fields. Here's the patch.
Bruce
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Booble! makes a boob.
Readers may recall from last week's newsletter that a new "adult-oriented" search engine has launched, called Booble. Completely unexpectedly, Google have sent them a cease-and-desist letter:
"We dispute your assertion that your website is a parody... Your website does not comment on the Google website at all; it merely uses the Google look and feel and a similar name for a search engine. Your web site is a pornographic web site."
To which Booble respond: "Booble's web site is an adult search engine, not 'a pornographic site,' as referred to in your letter. In fact, entering the terms "porn" and "sex" in the Google search engine return 98,400,000 hits and 269,000,000 hits, respectively, while entering these same terms in the Booble adult search engine return 268 hits and 291 hits, respectively. Therefore, the Google mark - which has a longstanding association with pornographic terms and material - is obviously not tarnished."
Be interesting to see how this plays out.. I bet Booble won't settle for an X-box....
General
U.S. goverment launch Computer Emergency Readiness Team website
U.S. government launches National Cyber Alert System with nice buttons to centralise all computer security announcements, and alert people of virus threats etc. Read MoreGeneral