Microsoft to give US Gov. critical patches first

sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:48 am

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?t.../technologyNews

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is to give the U.S. government priority in fixing security holes in Windows and other software, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Under a plan to take effect later this year, Microsoft will give the U.S. Air Force versions of software "patches" to fix serious security vulnerabilities up to a month before they are available to others, the paper said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will give advance notice of problems to other government agencies and distribute patches to them, the Journal said, citing officials at Microsoft and the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

What the hell is THIS going to achieve?

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 12:04 pm

What's the point of that? If they know about the security hole and patch it, why only make it available to a certain party?! Bandwidth? I doubt that's the problem.

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MrSelf · Post by **MrSelf** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:14 pm

Often, when they release a patch, virus writers analyse the patch to see what loop-hole it fixed, and write a virus that targets specifically machines that haven't yet updated the flaw. At this point they have the unique insight into the exact explotations of the flaw, where as before, they typically know only parts of the flaw to exploit. This allows the government to safeguard it's machines before this flood happens.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:53 pm

Makes sense I guess, but I think the biggest issue with flaws is how they're on every single news site. If the media would shut up about flaws (in any software, not just MS) it would help allot and minimize the viruses.

For example look at that phpbb flaw. The only reason that worm was successfull is because of all the media coverage that flaw had, so even though virus authors did not know what the flaw was, they knew there was a big one so they looked further into it.

I guess the media coverage is needed to ensure people get patched so it's a double standard I guess.

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sintekk · Post by **sintekk** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:21 pm

Red Squirrel wrote: Makes sense I guess, but I think the biggest issue with flaws is how they're on every single news site. If the media would shut up about flaws (in any software, not just MS) it would help allot and minimize the viruses.

If people didn't know about the exploit, how can they protect themselves? Many times, microsoft has already released a patch to fix a exploit before it becomes common. This puts pressure on people to use Windows Update.

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