Focus On: Vulnerabilities

MSN searchers looking for ISPs or other services that support phpBB are out of luck. MSN search forbids it. Same applied to Google until Monday. Developers claim to get different results, depending on browser and the phrasing of the search query. phpBB users and their vendors just want to know when the blockade will end.

If Microsoft's a crocodile, Steve Gibson's its version of the Crocodile Hunter. The Gibson Research chief claims somebody on the Windows crew installed the WMF vulnerability as a backdoor. Redmond vehemently disagrees. But they both agree on one thing: Windows 9x/ME/NT can't be cracked using the current crop of WMF exploits. For once, the old code was actually written better.

Although some suspect that Microsoft may have overridden their settings in Windows Automatic Update to make sure its patch for the WMF exploit was universally installed, Microsoft says Windows Automatic Update worked just like always.

Microsoft says it didn't commandeer users' computers to push-out its fix for the WMF Exploit. Many experienced users who suffered unexpected reboots beg to differ. To make sure it doesn't happen to you, Email Battles has rounded up a variety of ways to disable reboot after Windows Automatic Update for XP Pro, XP Home, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003.

Microsoft's patch for the WMF exploit has been released four days early, and not a moment too soon. Hundreds of WMF exploits are already in the wild. Every program that accesses GDI32.dll is at risk. That means almost everything Windows, including: Firefox, Maxthon, Opera, Internet Explorer, Excel, Word, Outlook, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.