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Homeland Security says 'Patch Windows Now'

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-that's-paraphrased dept.

gregger writes "Wow, so the Department of Homeland Security is really concerned with Microsoft patches now... enough to come out and tell us to patch our machines. This warning, chronicled in eWeek, was issued less than a day after the release of 23 patches from Redmond. So, if you don't apply the patches, then what?"

1 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. The real issue by tholomyes · · Score: 4, Informative

    This update is as important as it gets. There are vulnerabilities in every major MS program which allow remote code execution, which means that as soon as the exploit is discovered, it can take advantage of holes all over your system.

    Affected programs and services:
    - MS Server Services (TCP 139 and 445).
    - DNS servers
    - Internet Explorer
    - Outlook Express
    - Microsoft Management Console
    - HTML Help
    - Visual Basic
    - Microsoft Office
    - Windows kernel

    I'm not too surprised that they're trying to push awareness of this patch. It was the lack of patching several weeks beforehand that allowed Code Red to do as much damage as it did.

    --
    When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk