Posted on 07/30/2004 6:40:47 AM PDT by Eagle9
Microsoft executives said that a comprehensive patch for Internet Explorer will be released next week, finally plugging the hole that hackers exploited in a sneak attack during June.
That month, several exploits that took advantage of the browser's vulnerabilities hit users, most notably one dubbed Scob, or Download.ject. In that attack, a gang of Russian hackerscompromised servers running Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) software, then dropped a Trojan horse onto machines running IE that had simply viewed pages from those servers. The Trojan, in turn, installed a key logger and other malicious code to pilfer financial information.
Earlier this month Microsoft posted a temporary fix and then a tool for cleaning infected systems. It also promised that a patch would be ready at some point, but refused to commit to a date. Then, Microsoft officials said in a public online chat session that “We have people working around the clock on it.”
It appears that clock is close to striking.
“We're targeting the release within the next week,” said Dean Hachamovitch Wednesday in the security-oriented hosted monthly by Mike Nash, the head of Microsoft's security efforts. “We're doing our final checks right now.”
The upcoming patch will be released “out of cycle,” said Hachamovitch, who oversees development for IE. That means it will appear before Microsoft's next regular-scheduled patch day. Microsoft rarely departs from the second-Tuesday-of-the-month schedule, an indication of how critical the company sees the fix. The next scheduled patch day is August 10.
IE's patch, which will apply to IE 5.01, 5.5, and 6.0, was long in development and testing, said Hachamovitch, because “the core vulnerability was complicated.” He also noted that extensive testing -- both on other applications that might be affected by the patch and the various versions of IE and Windows -- meant the patch took longer to finalize.
“The question is quality. Fixing the vulnerability [in IE] and breaking something else in the process doesn't help anyone,” said Hachamovitch.
Microsoft was taken to task by numerous security experts and analysts for the rash of IE vulnerabilities, with some even going so far as to recommend that users dump the browser and use another until the Redmond, Wash.-based developer fixed the flaws.
That may have been behind the 1.32 point drop in the percentage of surfers using IE that monitoring firm WebSideStory noted in mid-July. During an interview then, Geoff Johnston, an analyst with WebSideStory, credited the decrease in IE's popularity to a combination of its security woes and solid alternatives. “Millions of people were just waiting for an excuse to change,” he said.
Hachamovitch hopes that the soon-to-come patch will convince people to stick with IE. “Users should have confidence that as long as they're running the latest browser with all the latest security fixes...they will have the most powerful and secure browsing experience,” he said.
Tech Ping.
LOL, JUNK!!! DONT EVER USE IE AGAIN!!
Wooo Hoooo Microsoft is finally going to fix Internet Exploder!
What a relief!
No, wait a minute: they've promised that before...
As Bullwinkle would say, "This time fer shur!"
Or maybe the better analogy is with Lucy van Pelt and the football...
lol, i'm using it right now!!! :)
I like Firefox, but there are a couple of things I find that need some tweeking.
Download.Ject Detection and Removal Tool (KB 873018)
LOL ! No comment, regarding Lucy Van Pelt and the football.
oops! nice link, BUT...not for windows 98. is my beeber broke, or about to be? not a tech guy, but ive heard that windows will soon stop supporting 98.
That's what extensions are for. I have eight on my copy, and they make browing and posting much faster.
I have only one real nitpick, and that's the tabs. Opening a new tab in the background, which I do all the tiem, pushes the current tab and its contents down about one pixel. This small shift is very annoying to me, but then I'm a user interface developer. I'll submit it to Mozilla.org and see how long it takes to fix.
I added QuickNote 0.5.9.2 last week. With four 'notepads' in one tab for copy/paste, it's very useful when posting here on FR.
Thanks, running under Linux I haven't found anything as good as NoteTab as yet, miss that package and PowerDesk immensely....
The thing that I find the most noticable is this. When I'm using IE, and I'll want to open a different website that I haven't got bookmarked then I'll go, FILE, OPEN, then I'll get the window to type in the URL. Firefox doesn't have this where Mozilla does. I have to type in the URL in the ADDRESS block.
I did get Firefox, but found it not as user friendly. Didn't like the bookmarks, etc. Maybe I didn't give it a chance....
Yeah, I haven't been back to MSIE since SCOB.
If you expect the browser to supply you with the bookmarks then you should try opera.....
I didn't like it cause they gave hundreds of such.
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