Microsoft Plugs "Drive-By" and 14 Other Holes

CWmike writes "Microsoft today patched 15 vulnerabilities in Windows, Windows Server, Excel, and Word, including one that will probably be exploited quickly by hackers. None affects Windows 7. Of today's 15 bugs, Microsoft tagged three 'critical' and the remaining 12 'important.' Experts agreed that users should focus on MS09-065 first and foremost. That update, which was ranked critical, affects all still-supported editions of Windows except Windows 7 and its server sibling, Windows Server 2008 R2. 'The Windows kernel vulnerability is going to take the cake,' said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security. 'The attack vector can be driven through Internet Explorer, and this is one of those instances where the user won't be notified or prompted. This is absolutely a drive-by attack scenario.' Richie Lai, the director of vulnerability research at security company Qualys, agreed. 'Anyone running IE [Internet Explorer] is at risk here, even though the flaw is not in the browser, but in the Win32k kernel mode driver.'"

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Would the big customers know more?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

From the article

But while Storms speculated that Microsoft knew the EOT font flaw was a security issue -- and waited until now to patch older Windows -- Lai thought that Microsoft didn't realize until recently that it was also a security vulnerability in editions prior to Windows 7. "I think they fixed this bug as part of the code sanitization during [Windows 7's] development cycle. It was actually only publicly disclosed recently, and then they patched it in other Windows

The article is speculating what did Micrsoft know and when did it know it etc. Microsoft's standard line defending its security through obscurity policy is, "we are not providing any details because it is going to help the hackers". But what about its big customers? Almost all businesses do not care much about its small customers. So forget small timers. But Microsoft has to coddle its big Fortune500 company customers. Would they be informed, even under confidentiality agreements and non disclosure agreements, which platforms and applications are vulnerable?

How do these big companies justify being so meek and acquiescing to Microsoft? If these Fortune 500 companies chip in 100,000$ a year, they can create an Institute of Software Interoperability and go towards reducing their switching costs. Microsoft has total revenue of more than 25 billion dollars, and a significant chunk comes from these big companies. They pay off has to be enormous for these companies.