Warning To Microsoft Windows Users

Quote

Animated cursors could prove risky for Windows users, Microsoft has warned.

The software giant is investigating reports that the way Windows handles alternatives to the traditional arrow cursor can leave PCs open to attack.

By booby-trapping a website or e-mail attachment with code that exploits the flaw, malicious hackers could hijack a Windows PC.

Microsoft warned users to be wary of attachments and urged them to update security software to combat the threat.

Just thought id make members aware.

Full BBC News Report

who'd of thought it eh - hijacked through something as simple as a cursor!

well, I s'pose after all, it is Microsoft

To be honest, your only going to be affected if you download cursor packs (most of the ones I see peoples computers with are the ones that they advertise on the likes of MySpace, where you just know their full of GAIN and Gator and the like), and you would have to be stupid enough to open an attatchment when you don't know what it is and havent virus scanned it before hand.

To be fair to Microsoft, you should me an operating system that is as versatile and easy to use as Windows, and doesnt have any flaws, and I will give you a tenner. Its bound to have some flaws.

Interestingly, it seems that it only affects the NT line of operating systems, although in one breat it states Vista users are affected by it, in another breath it states that Vista users with Internet Explorer 7 are not affected by it. Quite confusing I must say. Afaik, Vista has shipped with Internet Explorer 7 since RC1, maybe even the final release of BETA 2...

Originally Posted by MattyC

you would have to be stupid enough to open an attatchment when you don't know what it is and havent virus scanned it before hand.

To be fair to Microsoft, you should me an operating system that is as versatile and easy to use as Windows, and doesnt have any flaws, and I will give you a tenner. Its bound to have some flaws.

You'd be very suprised at how many people are stupid enough to do such a thing. 9 out of 10 computers I've been asked to fix has had some sort of spyware executables such as gain/gator software installed. Inexperienced people can easily be fooled by visual messages - i.e. spoof emails, fake message boxes, fake computer scanning popups e.t.c.

As you say, it is bound to have some flaws. The difficult thing for Microsoft is, as they dominate so much of the market, so many people try to exploit it and once a flaw has been found, it applies to every other machine that has that software installed.

It does seem very confusing of what users are affected by this flaw.

In this day and age, where virus's are reguarly reported on the news and in the media, then people imho have no excuse to be ignorant towards the threat of virus's.

As far as I am concerned, most of the people who get these types of virus's, pretty much deserve it for being so stupid and pig ignorant. And its always Microsoft who get the blame for everything, yes they leave flaws in the software to begin with, but with billions of lines of code, who wouldnt, even Firefox 2 STILL has bugs which they dont seem to iron and all that is, is a web browser. People should be more careful and less ignorant and many of these flaws wouldnt turn into major problems.

Theres a quick fix for users to remove the flaw:

Originally Posted by BBC News

Microsoft is moving to close a security loophole in Windows that lets attackers hijack a PC via animated cursors.
Malicious hackers are already known to be exploiting the flaw via booby-trapped and compromised websites.

Microsoft usually issues security patches once a month to help users keep their PC safe.

However, the seriousness of the bug has prompted the software company to act early and stifle attempts to exploit the flaw.

Right the fix can be obtained via Windows Update. Microsoft had actually already planned to release the fix with the next scheduled security update, which was due to be released on the 10th April, but due to the fact this got media attention and to prevent it causing users problems by being exploited, it has been released as of today.

BBC News Report

yer i just done the update on our pc thanks for the warning mate

No problemo matey, glad to be of some help hehe.

yer makes a change lmao