Information Protection and Security

Microsoft has updated the advisory for MS09-054, a cumulative security update for Internet Explorer, to describe its impact on Firefox users. The first version failed to mention any impact, leading to what may have been an overreaction on Mozilla's part. An entry on Microsoft's Security Research & Defense blog goes into the matter further. The bottom line: Firefox users should apply MS09-054, even though it's labeled as an update for IE.
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Mozilla developers have launched a new online tool that tells Firefox users whether popular add-on components such as Java or QuickTime are up to date.
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Mozilla has expanded on the plans they acknowledged yesterday to check the version of Flash you are running to make sure that it's not outdated.
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Microsoft has released 5 security bulletins for Windows and updates to address the 8 vulnerabilities described in them. All 5 bulletins have a maximum severity rating of "critical," but some Windows versions are affected more severely than others. The recently-announced vulnerability in the IIS FTP service is not addressed, nor is this morning's new SMB2 vulnerability.
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Attack surface is a term used to convey the amount of code available to attackers in a program. As a general matter, the more features added to a program, the greater the attack surface. For example, adding a web server to your web browser? You increase the attack surface.
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Due to a bug rated with "High" severity Mozilla has released new versions of the Thunderbird mail client and SeaMonkey Application Suite. Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 and SeaMonkey 1.1.17 are available for download or through the Updates menus.
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Despite new tools that speed deployment, many administrators are still far behind.
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A San Jose Mercury News news report says that over 300 hospital devices, including MRI systems, were infected with the Conficker worm and attacking other devices on the network.
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Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 to Windows Update yesterday as part of a flurry of generally non-security updates. IE8 shows up as a "High-priority" update.