Microsoft releases emergency Windows patch
By Asavin Wattanajantra,
Microsoft has rushed out a emergency ‘critical’ security patch for Windows users, the first time it has released one outside of its patch cycle for more than a year.
There was little information about the out-of-band security update, but it did say the critical vulnerability could result in remote code execution, enabling an attacker to take control of a target’s computer.
The operating systems affected ‘critically’ are Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Marked ‘important’ were Windows Vista and Server 2008.
Microsoft spokesman Christopher Budd said that the update will be released today at 5pm, with a restart required.
According to reports, the last time an emergency patch was issued was in April 2007, due to a flaw that was publicly known and resulted in attack code hosted on hundreds of websites.
Davey Winder blogs about the patch here.
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