Over the past few days, all the news I read seems to be about the Microsoft patch on Thursday. A handful of you are subscribed to AdvisorBits and maybe a few of you aren't reading the same things as I read. In a very unusual event, Microsoft released a patch on Thursday that is rated Critical. Critical means ... you should have it. All versions of Windows are affected. Links to other coverage are below the video.
Official Microsoft Announcement : MS08-067
Most users should only take away one thing from reading the announcement at Microsoft. If you are responsible for a computer that runs Windows, run Windows Update or Microsoft Update and follow the instructions. (If you are one of my customers, your servers were patched Thursday night.) I have applied the patch to my own XPSP3 workstation and nothing broke.
Can't get it out of my head
There's been such dire predictions in coverage of this that I can't get this song from my adolescence out of my head. The title pretty much says it all.
Additional reading:
- MSRC Blog post on how the worm was discovered and responded to.
- Department of Homeland Security CERT Cyber Security Alert SA08-297A
- Security Focus brief on the issue.
- Dave Lewis at LiquidMatrix wins the prize for being the first to bring it to my attention.