Microsoft Warning

[BOAC]

I'm amazed I am the first! The German government have advised internet users in Germany NOT to use IE due to a significant security hole.

MS are reported to be panicking and trying to plug it, but it appears to affect 6/7 and 8

Wonderful!

[Skittles]

*Closes IE and opens Firefox*

I anticipate this will not affect those with any decent level of security.

Edit: Or perhaps not, will use another browser until they release a patch.

[BOAC]

OK - time to catch up. It is the 'zero day' exploit code that Google suffered which has now gone public, vastly increasing the risks of vulnerabilities being exploited.

More from 'The Register' (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/15/ie_zero_day_exploit_goes_wild/)

I reckon IE goes in the fridge for a while.

[BOAC]

Is this really a fuss about nothing? Do the experts have no comment?

Here's (http://www.krebsonsecurity.com/) a little more. I'm interested in the link to Adobe too, in view of the appearance of http://www.pprune.org/computer-internet-issues-troubleshooting/402254-shockwave-updater.html (http://www.pprune.org/computer-internet-issues-troubleshooting/402254-shockwave-updater.html)on my machine

[DeeJayEss]

I thought this only affected IE6? Or was that another story?

[ATNotts]

I am amazed that this story is running on BBC news, but if you trawl the text pages of ARD and ZDF, or watched the ZDF news bulletins there was nothing mewntioned yesterday afternoon, when the story broke, or this morning.

Is this a non-story picked up from a German tabloid by the BBC, or an old story that the beeb has just found?

Sure if the German givernment was saying this sort of thing it would have been all over the broadcast media?

[BOAC]

80 - I have no idea how serious it is, hence the post here, but if you Google 'internet explorer german government' you will see it is a bit more than the BBC! MS as usual playing it down.

DJS - the news says IE6-8 inclusive.

The 'flaws' are nothing new - what the meeja are saying is that the flaws (which were kept 'inside') have been released into the 'wild' so any hacker can use them.

Who knows. Don't want to be the first to find out. Anyone writing web for the 'common people' (and that's me) will be using IE to check the pages. Hopefully if just used 'off-line' there should not be a problem.

SD - any comments?

MS are saying '7-10 days' for a patch.

[Tarq57]

A Microsoft Hotfix (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979352) for those that don't have DEP enabled by default.
(Mitigates, no guarantees.)
Another thing that would seriously mitigate it is disabling/prompting for scripting in Internet Options.

[BOAC]

Patch arrived this AM for IE8 - phew! That's it, worry beads away, MS have sorted it.....................................if only!

[green granite]

MS have sorted it.

Until the next one. :)

[BOAC]

As you saw, GG, my post was trifle 'TIC', but do I take it that this is the response to the 'scare' or is it incidental - I haven't checked 'The Register' yet.

[green granite]

TIC, You? Microsoft? never :E

from the knowledge base article Article ID: KBID003753 regarding the update:

This security update resolves seven privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The more severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 (except Internet Explorer 6 for supported editions of Windows Server 2003). For Internet Explorer 6 for supported editions of Windows Server 2003, this update is rated Moderate

[BOAC]

:):) Hooray! Untense those clenched buttocks, BOAC, we are safe........................

[rgbrock1]

Perhaps this is yet another reason why IE is occasionally referred to as Microsoft
Internet Exploder.

[Loose rivets]

there was nothing mewntioned yesterday afternoon,

That's what comes of asking kittens.;)