Microsoft finds more 'critical' flaws in Windows

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Microsoft trapped in the hole they dug themselves

"Microsoft said that if a user is logged on with administrative privileges, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system, including installing programs, deleting data, or creating new accounts with full privileges. Microsoft added that users whose accounts are configured to have fewer privileges on the system would be at less risk than users who operate with administrative privileges.

Microsoft said the second critical update concerns vulnerabilities related to "HTML Help" and "showHelp." If a user is logged on with administrative privileges, an attacker who successfully exploited the most severe of these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system, the company said."

I've said time and again in many different forums, including the XP SP2 newsgroups that running a Windows machine as an administrator is the most dangerous thing you can do, and that Microsoft needs to get serious about educating users about the grave dangers of doing this.

Microsoft has it's user base trained to think that Windows is 'different' from other OS's and that running your machine as administrator is what you're supposed to do. As many of the avid MS bashers here have already pointed out, a complete rewrite (Longhorn) is only thing that will pull Microsoft out of the hole they are in right now, as they can't just yank those admin rights away from the current crop of XP users.

Posted by: toadlife   Posted on: 07/13/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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