Microsoft to Release 6 Security Updates Next Week

An anonymous reader wrote in with an article that leads: "Microsoft will release six groups of security patches next week, including three critical updates for Windows and Excel users. The critical updates will fix bugs in many different versions of Microsoft's products including the latest versions of Excel, Windows XP, Vista and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said."

Comments

Best Line from the Article: re: online criminals

[DontScotty]

"Online criminals have used flaws in Excel and other MSFT Office products in limited attacks"

2nd best line "Typically the attacker will e-mail the victim a maliciously encoded Office attachment."

So - the entire thrust of security boils down to DON'T OPEN ATTACHMENTS YOU ARE NOT EXPECTING, EVEN FROM 'TRUSTED' SOURCES.

Ok and...

[svendsen]

why is there an article about patches anymore? Everything gets patched... Windows / Linux / OS X / a few hundred thousand applications that run on them.

Slashdot all the news about iPhone and patches that you have ever dreamed of....

Patch Tuesday = no work for an hour or two

[simong]

One of the joys of working for a big company is the splendid way in which a large patch distribution nails network bandwidth and pulls down every machine in the office while it is installed. I'm not sure who's at fault here but they sure ain't the sharpest tool in the box.

Re:And ...

[MoonFog]

Could be because a large portion of Slashdot's readers are sysadmins and chances are that many of them are administrating Windows machines at work?

Re:Why is this news again?

[Ephemeriis]

Does everyone here secretly run Windows systems

Secretly? No... But my job forces me to deal with Windows far more than I like. And then there's three Windows gaming systems at home...

I mean, Christ, it's almost like everyone here hates Microsoft or something!

See my above statement. By the time I get home from dealing with buggy Windows machines all day long the last thing I want to do is deal with more Windows issues at home...which is why I'm running Linux for my primary machine. But we're a family of gamers - two WoW junkies and a CoH/V addict - which means we've got Windows machines at home. And I just spent the 4th of July, which I had off from work, reloading my son's PC.

So, yeah, there's a bit of animosity towards Microsoft around here...

To those who have overconfidence about security.

[Zombie Ryushu]

Yes, Linux is more secure than Windows. We know that.

That doesn't mean that we can rest easy on Linux Security. We must never for a moment think that even with Linux we are ever completely safe. As long as any computer has power to it, it has a security risk, but I'd like to present an alternative way of thinking about it.

Linux must not only be better in security, but better in capability.

I know that design wise, OpenLDAP/Kerberos/Samba/FreeRadius/AFS will produce a far more secure network infrastructure than Active Directory will. But that combination will not produce as capable an infrastructure as the real ADS. The worst security vulnerability Linux could have is the security vulnerability produced when an orginization chooses Active Directory on Windows over Open Directory on Linux.

If you want to change this, contribute to OpenLDAP, to Samba, to FreeRadius, and Kerberos. Lets make Open Directory not only more secure to Active Directory, but outright superior.

Bring on the news!

[Gription]

The real point is why is this considered news that needs to be released to /. ?
They have released this quantity of patches before...
Often...

This is like walking outside and exclaiming in surprise, "Look everybody! There's still air out here!!!"