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thedarkprojectAce. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=WMF
New Windows vulnerability: one person says that "This is one of the worst, if not the worst in the history of this operating system." Basically your computer can be completely compromised just by viewing an image, for example on a web site you're reading. If you're lucky, it'll just install spyware or use your computer to send junk emails. If someone gets really malicious, they could probably write code to delete your hard disk contents or whatever. No firewall or spyware-removal can help here.
Microsoft expect to issue a patch for this on Jan 10th - about 2 weeks after it was first seen, which is pretty dire really. Some nice guy has provided his own patch though, which can allegedly be found here, if you can get the site to respond. Install it if you can. (EDIT: It's also available here. You can uninstall it when Microsoft get around to issuing their own fix.)
One source says, "Internet Explorer will view the image and trigger the exploit without warning. New versions of Firefox will prompt you before opening the image." Worth thinking about. I may just use Linux until I can get my new computer. :)
New Windows vulnerability: one person says that "This is one of the worst, if not the worst in the history of this operating system." Basically your computer can be completely compromised just by viewing an image, for example on a web site you're reading. If you're lucky, it'll just install spyware or use your computer to send junk emails. If someone gets really malicious, they could probably write code to delete your hard disk contents or whatever. No firewall or spyware-removal can help here.
Microsoft expect to issue a patch for this on Jan 10th - about 2 weeks after it was first seen, which is pretty dire really. Some nice guy has provided his own patch though, which can allegedly be found here, if you can get the site to respond. Install it if you can. (EDIT: It's also available here. You can uninstall it when Microsoft get around to issuing their own fix.)
One source says, "Internet Explorer will view the image and trigger the exploit without warning. New versions of Firefox will prompt you before opening the image." Worth thinking about. I may just use Linux until I can get my new computer. :)
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 12:04 am (UTC)Answer: virus writers do... at least, they do now.
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Date: 2006-01-04 12:05 am (UTC)I'll bet that's due to Bill Gate$ getting pissed off that someone's tried to fix his operating system before he's had a chance to let the virus win...
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Date: 2006-01-04 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 09:56 pm (UTC)But that thing is not good. Maybe one should use Opera and put the setting on do not download any pictures but that would make internet so boring.
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Date: 2006-01-04 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-04 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 11:45 am (UTC)It does say that Win98 SE isn't significantly affected by the problem, which is nice for me. It would be better to have an update though.