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Another Big “Patch Tuesday” Coming Up

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:01:43 +0000

Today Microsoft announced that its net patch Tuesday coming up next week (2/9/2010) will contain a record 13 security fixes. If history is any guide, I predict that there will be problems at the workstation and server level, so my suggestion to you, if you are a network administrator or tech support go-to man, brace for impact. In my experience, Microsoft’s security patches often break as many PCs and they cure, particularly when Microsoft release a large number of them without doing enough QA. I have seen servers not be able to connect to the network to workstations bluescreening right after an update, and everything in between. so if you’re a network admin, here’s what I suggest: modify the Windows Update behavior to download but not install the updates. You can easily do this through Group Policy without having to go to each and every workstation (Server should all be set up this way by default). Next, on Wednesday, update a couple of workstations manually and see if they come back up OK. If you are satisfied that the patches are safe, then go back to the Group Policy and change it back to auto install.

I suggest updating servers manually, while standing in front of it, not remotely, during down time. or slow network activity.

New Acrobat Reader Exploit Revealed

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:12:47 +0000

Adobe has issued an advisory pointing out a new vulnerability in the Acrobat Reader 9.2 and earlier due to its Javascript feature. I short, a malicious website (or a link in an email pointing to a malciously crafted PDF file) could execute arbitrary code including installing malware/viruses/Trojans on a Windows XP and prior machine. Windows 7 and Vista as well as Mac and Linux operating systems will crash, but are otherwise not vulnerable. Adobe has not yet explained how they will address this problem other that to say they are investigating it.

Adobe’s Acrobat Reader has had a string of serious security vulnerabilities in the past year. Acrobat users are encouraged to update their software by going to the Adobe site and to disable the Javascript feature.

Popular Bittorrent Site Goes Dark

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:38:41 +0000

Today, the popular bittorrent site mininova.org removed all torrents uploaded by its users and replaced its front page with a slim selection from content distributors.

On their blog, the operators cited for its reason the court ruling by the Dutch court in August of this year, which deemed the content hosted on the site in breach of copyright laws and therefore illegal. Facing heavy fines, mininova.org, which had become the most popular site for bittorrent users, decided to remove all content that could be considered a copyright violation.

Mininova.org was formed in 2005 by five Dutch students to take the place of supernova.org, which was also forced to take down their site as a result of a similar ruling

Vista More Secure than XP

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:09:24 +0000

According to Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report, released today, Windows Vista (Service pack 1) is 61.9 percent less likely to be infected by malware than Windows XP (Service Pack 3).

The biennial report covers the first half of 2009 and most of the current Microsoft operating system, but not Windows 7.

The report states that the Conficker worm continued to be the most prevalent mlware for the fist half of 2009, infecting more than 5,000,000 PCs. Conficker spreads either by exploiting vulnerable Microsoft Windows Servers, through infected USB or thumb drives or by brute-forcing weak passwords on PCs. (see Common Strategies for Securing your PC)

The data is collected from Windows Defender, the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MRT) and Security Essentials.