Three critical fixes star in Patch Tuesday update
Among the unmagnificent seven
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Three of the seven patches Microsoft released on Tuesday earn the dread rating of critical.
Updates involving flaws in handling streaming media by Microsoft DirectX, bugs in Windows Media Format Runtime, and multiple vulnerabilities in IE all pose a severe risk.
In all three cases the vulnerabilities addressed by the update create a possible means for miscreants to smuggle malware onto, or otherwise attack, vulnerable Windows boxes. But the IE update deserves special attention since hackers are actively exploiting the bug to attack vulnerable machines, the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Centre warns.
The remaining four "important" updates address bugs including a brace of bugs in Windows Vista and a security bug in DRM software from Macrovision that comes bundled with Windows. Macrovision issued a patch to address flaws in its SafeDisk utility in November, which is just as well because the bug has become the target of various attacks by crackers.
Microsoft's December patch summary can be found here. A rather more colourful (graphical) overview from SANS can be found here. ®
COMMENTS
@Charley
"Or, to put it another way, it takes one mechanic to service my car. Microsoft has about 60,000 employees.
Mechanic:10,000/1 = 10,000.
Microsoft: 40,000,000/60,000 ~= 666"
What's the Bible say about the number 666 again?
--Off to have a cold one.
KB942615
As long as it doesn't damage Firefox I don't see the problem. Why did you uninstall it?
KB942615
Watch what you're doing when you install this. Once I'd installed it, IE7 could no longer browse the Internet. This was the same on several computers in my house. Once I uninstalled it and rebooted, IE worked again. Obviously there is something wrong with it. There are lots of comments around citing similar problems.
So, DON'T INSTALL IT!!
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