Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Image Handling Flaw Puts Windows At Risk

Posted by Zonk on from the don't-click-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has released word that several image handling flaws may open Windows PCs to Spyware or viruses. From the article: 'We will continue to see this type of vulnerabilities in every major application for the foreseeable future ... It is not just images, but any type of complex file format. This is something that security researchers and hackers have realized to be a weak point in many applications.'"

2 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Re:MSN Messenger felled by this months ago by webzone · · Score: 5, Informative

    the current flaw affects WMF (Windows Metafile) and EMF (Enhanced Metafile) file formats only. This is not the same thing as any jpeg or png-related vulnerability

  2. Re:Time to switch to Macintosh by evw · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're confusing exploits with vulnerabilities. There have been plenty of vulnerabilities or haven't you been following all the security updates?

    List of security updates for Mac OS X

    Take for example Security Update 2005-008

    This update includes the following components:

    ImageIO
    LibSystem
    Mail
    QuickDraw
    Ruby
    SecurityAgent
    securityd

    Hmm. A security update that touches the ImageIO library?

    p.s. before you flame/mod me into oblivion, I'm a happy Mac OS X user. Yes, Windows has way more bugs and a much worse security record. Is OS X invulnerable? No.