Applause to Microsoft for mitigating a potential worm even though the risk of infection to most companies is low. The worm would rely on multicast and most companies block multicast at the router. The Network World story says, "The critical bug lies in the way Windows processes networking traffic that uses IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) and MLD (Multicast Listener Discovery) protocols, which are used to send data to many systems at the same time. Microsoft says that an attacker could send specially crafted packets to a victim's machine, which could then allow the attacker to run unauthorized code on a system."
Router vendors such as Juniper have assured their customers that their wares protect against this potential bug. Nevertheless, it is still a Good Thing that Microsoft Security has jumped in and addressed this flaw. The more that Microsoft can show that it is serious about protecting its customers, the more it will repair its horrible reputation for security.
Go to Microsoft Subnet for more news, blogs, opinion.
More Microsoft Subnet blog posts
Microsoft's CES news: all about IPTV
Enterprise deployment guides for Vista SP1
Bill Gates last full day video
Video: One year, three minutes, many laughs
Bill Gates video interview,looking back and forward
Win free Microsoft training from New HorizonsSign up for the bi-weekly Microsoft newsletter. (Click on News/Microsoft News Alert.)
