> -----Original Message----- > From: Susan Bradley, CPA aka Ebitz - SBS Rocks [MVP]
[snip] > What we need here is education of why we shouldn't be blindly > clicking > like we are. When you buy a new computer...where is the security > education from the Best Buy or Dell? If users could be educated it would have already been done by now. I can't take credit for that opinion as Marcus Ranum (http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/) said it first. I think it's funny that you bring up Dell and Best Buy when Microsoft is the one with an EXECUTABLE image format. There have been quite a few image vulnerabilities in the last year or so but I don't remember any of them resulting from the built-in ability to execute code. > But to say this is "It's probably bigger than for any other > vulnerability we've seen" > http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/03/technology/windows_virusthreat > /index.htm?cnn=yes > > Gimme a break... it didn't stop the Internet [SQL Slammer], it didn't > shut down entire businesses [Blaster], but it did freak out > the Security > community. > >From what I can tell, Slammer wasn't a 0-day and neither was Blaster (at least the first set of worms). If memory serves, Slammer was the result of admins not applying a patch from Microsoft available months before the worm was released. Since then Microsoft patching has vastly improved and admin paranoia has gotten worse. The scariest thing about WMF is that it targets user interaction using what used to be the most innocuous file format besides plain text. Users are the hardest part of the network to secure - and with WMF it just takes one click. Derick Anderson --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
