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Say what? 'Vista's cover is blown'

Jon Skillings Editorial director
Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
Expertise AI, tech, language, grammar, writing, editing Credentials
  • 30 years experience at tech and consumer publications, print and online. Five years in the US Army as a translator (German and Polish).
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Jon Skillings

Call it the curse of the cursor.

Microsoft this week had to jump the gun on its monthly release of software patches because of troubles stirred up by animated cursors in Windows--cybercrooks were slipping through the hole to attack Windows PCs. As it turns out, the cursor patch itself is also a bit of a troublemaker.

Tuesday's release of that "critical" patch prompted some security experts to chide Microsoft for its claims about the security capabilities of Windows Vista.

"As far as software vulnerabilities go, Vista's cover is blown," said Nand Mulchandani, a vice president at Determina, the company that discovered the bug. "It is not Superman; it is just a human being...Vista is going to be very similar to the other operating systems Microsoft has delivered in terms of bugs. "