As happens from time to time, new security threats emerge for common software. Hackers are always looking for new ways to vandalise the internet. Recently some attacks have happened in China, apparently targeting Google. It seems the hackers have found a way of using a vulnerability in Internet Explorer.
It seems that it particularly impacts Internet Explorer 6 and older. It highlights the need to keep your software up-to-date.
Microsoft has released an update this morning. While most of clients are set up to automatically get this update, it’s important that we check it is installed correctly. For Kinetics KARE customers on our “Core Fundamentals”, “Proactive Peace of Mind” and “Total KARE” plans, we will ensure the patches are in place, and all work is included in your contract already. For our ‘monthly maintenance’ customers, we will check this as part of our regular service.
We recommend that the update is applied to all computers at home and work. If you would like us to check for you, please call or email us. In many cases it should be straight forward as we typically configure machines PC's to automatically apply these important updates. Nevertheless, things can go wrong, or services can be disabled, so we’d rather be careful! Servers will need to be manually checked.
Microsoft’s announcement says “This is to inform you of when we will have an update available for this issue and if we will release the update out-of-band. We take the decision to go out-of-band very seriously given the impact to customers, but we believe releasing a security update for this vulnerability out-of-band is the right decision at this time.
This morning, 7am NZT Friday 22 January, Microsoft has released a security update that addresses Security Advisory 979352.
Once the update is applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicised. We recommend that customers install the update as soon as it is available. For customers using automatic updates, this update will automatically be applied once it is released.
Customers using Internet Explorer 8 are not affected by currently known attacks and exploits due to the improved security protections provided in IE8.
Until the update is issued, we continue to recommend customers review the information in the Security Advisory http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/979352.mspx , implement the workarounds and mitigations and follow the information on our local Protect My PC website. www.protectmypc.co.nz”
Refer :
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/3249746/Microsoft-plans-Google-attack-browser-patch
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10621427
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10621640