Alert! Yesterday, Microsoft alerted us to a potential vulnerability in Windows that could be exploited in the same way as the Welchia and Blaster worms previously. We must all be vigilant in protecting ourselves and ***** from such attacks and as such, we have decided to email the Windows 2000 Professional patch out. If you require another version of the patch for Windows 2000 Server, Terminal Server, NT4 or Windows XP, please contact the *******on *** internally or ******** externally. To install the patch, simply launch the attachment and follow all on-screen prompts. The patch will require a reboot after installation. This patch does not apply for Windows 98 users. The patch will also shortly be appearing in your Advertised Programs list in SMS for both Windows 2000 and Windows XP. To install the patch from Advertised Programs, click Start, Control Panel then double click on Advertised Programs. Click Next if necessary until you see a list of available programs for install and then tick the box for Security patch KB824146 and click Next then click Finish. The SMS package is totally automated and will require no input as it runs. The patch will automatically reboot the PC after installing.
Microsoft apparently find 7 security issues a day in their various forms of applications they distribute. They only release a patch when someone writes a virus to exploit the flaw. Fills you with confidence. I'm off on the support site now to have a look.
Becareful with emails with MS updates in, alot of these are fake and are actually virus's. Make sure that that the email and where it is sent from is genuine before running the update.
I would never install any exe sent via email. Go to microsoft to get it. Anyway, if you have a firewall (configured correctly) you are safe from this exploit.
All this info came from STERIA, the company I work for! To learn more about Steria go to WWW.STERIA.co.uk or www.steria.com
