http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0d644d5e-7bb3- ... e2340.html

[quote]Computer security experts were grappling with the threat of a newweakness in Microsoft’s Windows operating system that could put hundreds of millions of PCs at risk of infection by spyware or viruses.

The news marks the latest security setback for Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company, whose Windows operating system is a favourite target for hackers.

[b]“The potential [security threat] is huge,â€

Someone know something about symptomes?

I believe you can be infected by opening images. If you do that, a website is opened wich can infect you.
If you use the latest Firefox you will be prompted before the file is opened.

I thought it was a meta-tag overflow kind of vulnerability, like the mp3 one.

Ie, if Windows attempts to parse the image (ie, for display on screen) a specially crafted file will overflow the buffer into system memory. Someone that knows what they're doing could turn that into anything...they could use it to install a trojan horse, virus, spyware, whatever.

I think this is it:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/securi ... 4-028.mspx

meh, that's not it, my bad. It's a vulnerability in wmf files. (Windows Metafile). Way back when they were built so you could embed executables in them, which allowed you to cancel print jobs (or something)...and that backwards support has been rolled into every version of Windows ever. It took someone this long to figure it out and exploit it.

A patch will be out on the tenth.

there's already an unoffical patch from a 3rd party dude. It is recommended by most of the large antivirus vendors that users apply the unofficial patch.

http://www.hexblog.com/index.html

I learned of this a week or so ago, but the description I read left me confused. I was wondering "what are the effects" of it? But this WMF problem is not a virus, so there are no symptoms. Basically, it's a gateway for the virus, not the virus it self.

Correct me, If I'm wrong.

I think that's about it.
Can't be arsed about installing the unofficial patch, the official one is coming next week anyway.

yea, that's correct. It's just a hole. Whatever actually invades the hole would have effects, but that depends entirely on what gets stuffed in. It could be used to install viruses, spyware, keyloggers, trojans, porn, games, SETI@home, or anything else the exploiter could possibly want to do.

hey there 11b, you got some holes that need stuffing?

here's an interesting interview with the guy that released the unofficial patch.

http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/176

You guys got the update? I do believe it installed on my computer yesterday.

In case someone missed:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/securi ... 6-001.mspx