Windows XP Security Issue

Today’s LangaList newsletter brings to my attention an XP security flaw that I think is important enough to repeat here. First of all you need to know that if you’ve already applied Windows XP Service Pack 1 you’re system is not at risk for this particular vulnerability and it would be a good idea for you to apply XP Service Pack 1 to your system. In the mean time Fred Langa points out a great, free utility to secure your system easily from this particular threat. That utility is made available by Steve Gibson and his site has all the gory details. Here’s just part of what Steve Gibson has to say about the XP security flaw;

“Ever since its release, Windows XP has contained a critical flaw that could be trivially exploited at any time by any malicious hacker. By causing any Windows XP system to process a specially-formed URL (web-style link), the XP system would obediently delete all or most of the files within any specified directory. (That’s not good.)”

“This flaw is considered critical because these malicious URLs could be delivered to any XP user through any means: via an eMail solicitation, a chat room, a newsgroup posting, a malicious web page, or even processed automatically without the user clicking anything by merely visiting a malicious web page. (That’s bad.)”

“Curiously, Microsoft was informed of this easily-demonstrated, quite significant, and trivial-to-fix, Windows XP defect back in June of 2002, but chose not to proactively address the significant vulnerability created for their users until the September 9th, 2002, release of Windows XP’s first service pack.”

| September 19th, 2002
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