Computer Tips -Tech Info

Tag: security update

  • Microsoft Releasing out of Cycle Patch for Internet Explorer Exploit

    Take a look at the official announcement. They’ve moved outside the usual update cycle for this one. VERY good move Microsoft to get this patch in before the holidays as it looks as though there’s been a spike in the use of this particular exploit and with people doing a lot of home pc browsing over the next two weeks, hopefully they can have a patched Internet Explorer to browse with. These are one more good reason to have an alternative browser such as firefox installed “just in case”. That’s not to say that Firefox is immune to all such security issues, but it is targeted less frequently and perhaps most importantly by DIFFERENT things than Explorer is targeted by. (I should note that version 3.0.5 of firefox is out to address it’s own list of issues.)

    By the way, this Internet Explorer vulnerability is listed as critical for Internet Explorer 5.01 on NT SP4, for Internet Explorer 6 on NT SP4 as well as pretty much every combination of Internet Explorer 6 or Explorer 7 on XP, Server 2003, Vista or Server 2008 AND those using Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 users are encouraged to update to a new release as well. In other words IF you use any currently supported version of Internet Explorer on any currently supported version of Windows you need to make sure this update installs.

  • The Cost of Running a PC 24 Hours a Day

    I saw an interesting question over at slashdot on the topic of how many companies actually had their employees power down their PC’s overnight. The site in question had about 8000 PCs about half of which stayed powered on overnight. There’s a lot of talk these days about “going green”. I’ve always been interested in the idea of conservation because it just makes sense to not be wasteful where it’s possible. So, as many of you know already I have somewhere around as many hobbies as there have been Presidential debates this last year…. At one point in time I’ve spent a lot of time working with off-grid power ideas (built a small somewhat portable emergency power system with solar/car recharge capabilities.) And if you’ve ever seriously looked at alternative energy you know that you need to learn about power consumption…. so based on what I learned here are some things to think about…

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  • Multiple Apple updates as Mac goes to version 10.4.8

    Apple is fixing 15 security flaws with the 10.4.8 version upgrade of Mac OS X. (There is a second update as well…. Security Update 2006-006). In typical fashion there are a bundle of issues in these updates. Several address remotely exploitable vulnerabilities.

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  • Firefox and Thunderbird updates

    As I’ve just posted to the security-update-notice category, Firefox and Thunderbird both have been released in 1.5.0.7 version…. the release fixes a number of known security issues and you should upgrade as soon as possible. Details on the issues at incidents.org Also, you can visit mozilla.com for downloads

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  • Intel Proset Wireless update

    A couple weeks back, there was a pretty important security update for the Intel Proset Wireless driver. The big problem is that the update was a memory hog and caused porblems. Sans has info on the update to the update, also George Ou is encouraging everyone to make sure they’ve got things updated. It’s possible to JUST download and install the driver without getting the full proset management software. So…. CENTRINO users – this means you… update your wireless driver.

  • Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection 10.5.0.1

    Memory utilization update. Previous update was security update. Release notes.

    download.

  • But it’s brand new, how could it have so many updates?

    This morning I was doing a fresh install of Windows XP SP2 into a Virtual Machine. So far, things are fine I went through windowsupdate and found 3 updates the first time, then rebooted and hit windowsupdate again to see 55 updates available. A lot of times when I set up a new pc for somebody they wonder why I want to check windows update multiple times. They’ll usually say something along the lines “but it’s brand new there shouldn’t be any updates.” Well, this install was from a SP2 disk and there have been a large number of updates since that was released. Many manufacturers use fairly sophisticated techniques to roll out the default install images they use, but it’s still very possible that your machine will have several updates waiting for it when you get it.

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  • Internet Explorer 7 as High Priority update and the ability to prevent it’s auto-download

    The news has come that Internet Explorer 7 will come out as a high priority security update when it’s released later this year. This should mean good things for the folks that are still using IE6 as it will bring quite a few security enhancements. (On a side note, my test of Vista with IE7 failed to display averyjparker.com … other sites hosted on the same server worked, but I got a page not found for that domain. More testing there to come.) Microsoft has noted that not everyone will want all their pcs to automatically update to IE7 and so… They’ll issue a tool to block that update if one chooses.

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  • Firefox 1.5.0.4 out….

    I haven’t seen news to this yet, just found it on Mozilla.com, but the 1.5.0.4 release of firefox seems to have been released sometime today. (1.5.0.4 of Thunderbird was announced earlier today.) I don’t know how quick Google is at directing to the new version of firefox, but I’ll include a link in this message for those of you that don’t have it…. Firefox is a very nice customizable, free (open source) web browser that I’ve found many people prefer to Internet Explorer for a number of reasons….

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  • Zotob update

    There was an update at Incidents.org on the Zotob worm and specifically an advisory related to Cisco products.

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