Office zero-day bugs spoil Patch Tuesday

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Gee this old stuff...

Scan the documents first! Gmail & Hotmail do it for free. Actually, any email provider worth salt does that now, so this is really a non issue.

So there's been a flurry of patches from Microsoft. And yet with all of the hype going around, espically Vista, not ONE of these attacks would have worked on a properly configured Vista system.

Properly Connfigured in Vista means:

1: Run as a standard user for most operations, unless administrator is needed.

2: Turn on Data Execution Protection (DEP) for all processes. This is not set to default for reasons I can't get. With it on, the animated cursor attack and the CSRSS flaw patched yesterday are blocked. A least that's my understanding from what I've read.

3: Keep the firewall on of course. Use a third party firewall if you'd like.

4: Keep Windows Defender on. Use a third party spyware product if you like.

5: Scan data and programs for viruss before opening and running them. While an active virus scanner is great I guess, I don't use one. I just scan stuff before I use it, or my email systems scan attachments first before I use them.

6: Apps can get hacked too, not just Windows. Try to keep your software up to date, not just Windows.

7. Be a little selective about the software you install. Don't just install stuff willy nilly, espcially if you have no idea about the source it came from. This is the biggest problem I see in the real world.


Any one running Vista, or XP for that matter, following these practices is pretty much at NO risk of getting infected with malware. Like the person who doesn't smoke has almost no risk of getting lung cancer.

Is it possible to get hacked following these procedures? Sure, but to this date, I've not see it.

There will always be malware, especilly for Windows, but in this day and age there are effective processes and tools for nearly elimnating the risk as well, and that's the real story that everyone should know.

Posted by: Heatlesssun1   Posted on: 04/11/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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