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MS09-001 - It's A Big(-ish) Deal This Time

Covering again the vulnerability beat this week, only from a more mundane angle: this one's a biggie, folks and folkettes, and you'd be well-advised to let Windows auto-update do its thing (or at least, test and patch at your earliest convenience, but then, if that kind of thing is part of a regular breakfast for you, what are you doing here?).

MS09-001 resolves three vulnerabilities in the SMB protocol implementation, two of them leading straight to unauthenticated, remote code execution (read: total ownership of affected systems on a first-come-first-serve basis) and a mere denial of service condition.

Before you start thinking that these are all bad things that may happen in your future and hence ignorable, take a moment to appreciate the facts.

All versions of Windows up to and including 7 are vulnerable in their unpatched state, firewalled systems may be spared yet corporate PC's rarely are firewalled from one another - which would give a potential worm plenty of room to spread - and that, in fact, there is a rumour around the block that there may already be exploit code in the wild for one or more of these vulnerabilities.

Patch now. Nobody would benefit from two Downadup-sized epidemics in one month - except virus writers.