bulletin

Doomsday Clock moves 1 minute closer to catastrophe

Tick, tock. The infamous Doomsday Clock, which represents how close mankind supposedly is to its annihilation, has been moved one minute closer to midnight.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), which created and maintains the symbolic clock, announced its decision yesterday.

"It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in … Read more

Microsoft patches Windows, IE

Microsoft today issued three "critical" security bulletins as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday program. Together with nine other alerts, which the company rated as "important," the bulletins address 22 vulnerabilities spanning Microsoft products from Windows and Internet Explorer to Office and Internet Information Services.

On the top of the list is MS11-003, which is a cumulative update for Internet Explorer that resolves four vulnerabilities. Included is a fix for the nasty CSS bug outlined in Security Advisory 2488013, a bug that could give attackers control of people's computers.

In a podcast about the patches, … Read more

Firefox updates include a dozen security fixes

On Wednesday, Mozilla released Firefox 3.0.4 (download for Windows and Mac) and Firefox 2.0.0.18 to address a dozen security flaws, half of which the browser maker ranks as critical. Among the critical is one that could allow an attacker privilege escalation after a session restore. Another could allow arbitrary code to execute with compromised Flash media files.

The updates are pushed automatically to current users and will take effect the next time the browser is restarted. Updates will soon no longer be available for users of Firefox 2; the update is a security update only. … Read more

The Internet does birthdays, too

Birthdays are one of the wonderful aspects of life that set us apart from robots, but that doesn't mean the cloud that is the Internet isn't fond of well wishing people with birthday salutations. Working at Webware, I register with an average of two services a day, often times more. Depending on the type of site, they'll occasionally ask for my birthday (mostly for age verification), which gets tucked away deep inside some server farm in rural Russia, or Ohio. Over the course of the past 10 months I've been here, plus whatever sites I've … Read more

Critical Microsoft security bulletin revised to add Office for Mac

One more time around the block, James.

Microsoft late Thursday revised one of its critical security bulletins from Patch Tuesday, adding another item to its list of affected software.

Security bulletin MS07-036 now includes a warning that Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac is also affected.

The update is designed to address a security flaw, which could allow attackers to overwrite the computer's memory with malicious code.

Microsoft notes that people running Office 2004 for the Mac on the Mac OS X 10.2 are at risk. It advises people to first install the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.5 update, … Read more

Microsoft offers more detailed security alerts

Microsoft is expanding the detail available in its service to notify people of upcoming security fixes, the company said Wednesday.

On the first Thursday of each month, Microsoft's Advance Notification Service (ANS) tells those who've signed up for it some particulars of patches the company issues the following Tuesday. Currently, Microsoft shares some aggregate information about the patches--for example, how many are severe--but beginning June 7, it will offer more information for each of the bulletins in the notification, according to Microsoft's Security Response Center blog.

Specifically, Microsoft will share for each vulnerability bulletin its maximum severity, … Read more