Posted on 07/12/2008 4:16:45 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
A software update for the Windows operating system has left hundreds and thousands of computer users unable to access the internet.The update, known as a "patch", conflicts with another piece of software, the Zone Alarms firewall, that many people use to protect their computers from hackers and viruses.
The patch, codenamed MS08-037, was designed to fix a security loophole in the way Windows handles website addresses. It was discovered that there was a weakness with the operating system that could allow hackers to re-route legitimate web pages to malicious websites instead, and leave internet users open to fraud and viruses.
But the fix proved incompatible with the ZoneAlarm firewall, and within hours of downloading the software update, users were reporting problems with their internet connections. The problem affected thousands of computer users who use the free Zone Alarms firewall to protect their machines.
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ZoneLabs, the company that makes ZoneAlarms, was last night recommending that computer users affected by the technical glitch uninstall the conflicting software update until a more permanent solution could be found. Computer users will be able to identify the rogue patch by its serial number, KB951748.
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(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I have had two computers affected by this hot fix. After removing the hot fix, I turned off automatic updates, because it will recognize that this update is not applied and will suggest that you install it.
These jerks at Zone recently removed bridge from there gaming network, this latest move certainly doesn’t surprise me!
These jerks at Zone recently removed bridge from their gaming network, this latest move certainly doesn’t surprise me!
Zone Alarm sucks, I use Vista’s built in firewall and my router’s, works perfectly fine.
This happened to me. I shut off ZoneAlarm, downloaded an updated version of it, installed it, and all was back to normal. What I’d like to know is if Microsoft knew about this problem before they released the update and didn’t bother to let us know. It’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t have tested it with a popular firewall like ZoneAlarm.
That’s interesting. My Firefox browser stopped connecting to the internet so I switched back to Netscape 9, which seems to work fine. I am using Zone Alarm Pro and I went into the control panel to check to see if ZA was blocking Firefox but didn’t see any evidence of it.
I thought I had the automatic updates blocked; they always seem to cause problems for me. How can I find his update and get rid of it, if it is in fact installed?
Zonelabs fixed this the day after it happened.
http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/pressReleases/2008/LossOfInternetAccessIssue.html
Yea, that's going to work really well for folks with XP.
Which for the "mundane" may have been impossible to download since they couldn't get online... ;-)
I stopped using Zone Alarm some time ago.
I have Windows Vista and I haven’t had any problems getting on the internet. I think the system installed updates just yesterday, so I don’t know if this update was included in it or not. I’m not that computer savvy to know what you all are talking about, so I hope that they’ve fixed the problem.
Uninstall the hotfix
1. Click the “Start Menu”
2. Click “Control Panel”, or click “Settings” then “Control Panel”
3. Click on “Add or Remove Programs”
4. On the top of the add/remove programs dialog box, you should see a checkbox that says “show updates”. Select this checkbox
5. Scroll down until you see “Security update for Windows (KB951748)”
6. Click “Remove” to uninstall the hotfix
Don’t want to be affected by Microsoft updates? Wait for the problems to appear!
On the bright side, those who can’t go online are super secure from virii and malware.
Irony ping.
This is a crappy Zone Alarm problem! Get rid of that and use a real hardware firewall!
Yup.
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