Wednesday, 9 August 2006

Microsoft Patches Windows & Office Vulnerabilities

Microsoft has released a dozen of patches for its Windows operating system and Office Suite, including 7 "critical" patches for Windows and 2 critical updates for Office.

A total of 23 vulnerabilities has been identified, the highest number since Microsoft began its Monthly patch program.

Microsoft has advised users to activate Automatic Update or visit the Update site on the 2nd Tuesday of every Month to get the latest updates for Windows and other Microsoft Products.

The critical update that Microsoft announced are vulnerabilities in the Windows Server and DNS services, flaws in Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, a vulnerability in the Microsoft Management Console, an issue with HTML Help, and several vulnerabilities in the Windows kernel.

McAfee on its blog wrote, "One of the critical vulnerabilities, (MS06-040) Service Server vulnerability, can be remotely exploited by an anonymous user on all Windows operating systems and has been labeled a worm candidate."

Microsoft fixed Office vulnerability in Visual Basic for Applications that could allow remote code execution, as well as two vulnerabilities in PowerPoint.