Once and Still a Techie Weblog

Important Microsoft Security Update released

Just yesterday, Microsoft released a security update “out of cycle” for all the latest versions of Windows starting from Windows 2000. Which says a lot about how critical it is to get the patch installed on your Windows system as soon as possible. The last time a Windows update was released on a day other than “Patch Tuesday” (usually the second tuesday of each month) was one and a half years ago.

Security Bulletin MS08-067 (KB958644) warns of a remote code attack that can spread across the internet without any user action required.  Windows 2000, XP SP2 or 3, and Server 2003 are particularly vulnerable to this attack. Vista and Server 2008 have some security measures that can reduce the effect of this vulnerability such as Data Execution Protection and User Account Control. However installing the patch on these systems is still highly recommended.

Antivirus vendors have already released definition updates to detect this form of attack however there have been reports of viruses out in the wild designed to take advantage of this security vulnerability with their number undoubtedly growing. Update your antivirus when possible and install this patch.

I’ve installed this patch on my Vista system and have had no problems so far. The installation will require a reboot fyi.

Update (Oct 28, 2008):

Two additional patches namely ‘Update for Windows Vista (KB957200)’ and ‘Security Update for Windows Vista (KB953155)’ were released just a few hours ago:

KB953155: Documented as Security Bulletin MS08-062. A security issue has been identified that could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to compromise your Microsoft Windows-based system and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. (I don’t know why my system gets this update only now since it was supposed to be included in the Patch Tuesday update cycle on Oct. 14.)

KB957200: This is a reliability update. This update resolves some performance and reliability issues in Windows Vista. By applying this update, you can achieve better performance and responsiveness in various scenarios.