Topic: A dozen patches on the way from Microsoft

[Clive]

Microsoft on Tuesday plans to release a dozen security bulletins, including a "critical" one for its own anti-spyware and other security products.

The bulletins, part of its monthly patch cycle, will provide fixes for an undisclosed number of security vulnerabilities, Microsoft said in a note on its website on Thursday.

The software maker plans to offer fixes for Windows, Office, Visual Studio, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), and several of its security products, including its Windows Live OneCare package of antivirus, firewall and PC health tools and its Windows Defender anti-spyware.

At least four of the bulletins will be labeled "critical", Microsoft's highest severity rating. These type of security issues typically could allow an attacker to gain full control of an affected system with no or minimal action by the user.

Critical fixes are on tap for Windows, Office, MDAC and the security tools, Microsoft said. The company provided no further details on which problems it is fixing, other than that some of the updates may require a system restart.

There are 10 disclosed, but yet-to-be-patched security holes in various Microsoft products, according to eEye Security's zero-day flaw tracker. At least five flaws are known in Office and at least one in Visual Studio.

Last month, Microsoft pulled four planned security bulletins at the last moment. Those bulletins were to have addressed bugs in Office.

[Simon]

Will it ever end...? 

[Clive]

   But lest we forget....

Two security flaws discovered in Firefox
Caroline McCarthy CNET News.com

Published: 08 Feb 2007 10:41 GMT

A security company has reported two new flaws in the Mozilla Firefox browser that may leave locally saved files vulnerable to outside attacks.

Both flaws were announced by SecuriTeam, a division of Beyond Security, this week. The first flaw lies in Firefox's pop-up blocker feature, according to a SecuriTeam statement on Monday. The browser typically does not allow websites to access files that are stored locally, according to the official report, but this URL permission check is superseded when a Firefox user has turned off pop-up windows manually. As a result, an attacker could use this flaw to steal locally stored files and personal information that might be stored in them.

A possible scenario for such an attack would involve the user clicking on a malicious link that would furtively plant a target file equipped with an exploit code on the computer's hard drive. Then it would display a prompt asking the user to allow a pop-up to appear in order to play a video file or download. The attacker-supplied file would then be loaded thanks to the browser flaw, which could give the attacker local file read privileges.

It appears that this flaw may only apply to older versions of Firefox, prior to the current 2.0 release, but Beyond Security was unavailable for comment on the matter.

The second flaw, announced by SecuriTeam on Wednesday, concerns Firefox's phishing protection feature. With this vulnerability, an adept phisher could fool the browser into believing that a fraudulent site is actually secure by adding particular characters into the URL of its website.

The phishing flaw does appear to apply to the current 2.0.0.1 version of Firefox.

Mozilla was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.

[Simon]

I would have thought that any half decent security software would prevent both of those potential vulnerabilities from being exploited.