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Hackers follow Microsoft patches with malware

IGBT

Lifer
Text

The attack code exploits two separate bugs in Windows Media Player, which were addressed in Microsoft's MS06-005 and MS06-006 advisories released Tuesday.


The MS06-005 bug concerns a flaw in the way the Media Player processes bitmap files, while MS06-006 has to do with the Media Player plug in for non-Microsoft browsers.


Of these two bugs, Microsoft rated only MS06-05 as critical, but both could be exploited to seize control of an unpatched machine, according to the French Security Incident Response Team Web site, which has published examples of the malicious code.


In fact, the code that takes advantage of the MS06-006 flaw may be of greater concern to Windows users, said Craig Schmugar, virus research manager with McAfee Inc.'s Avert Labs. "From a vulnerability side, MS06-005 is a concern, but from what we've seen so far, the MS06-006 exploits are further along."


So far, none of the code is being used much by attackers, he said. "Clearly there's been activity on the exploit-code writing side, but we haven't seen that translate into impacting customers."
 
The MS06-005 bug concerns a flaw in the way the Media Player processes bitmap files

Maybe this is a really stupid question but why would media player be used to process bitmap files? Isn't IE or Paint default and don't most people use a better option than those anyway? When in Windows I use Irfanview myself.
 
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