Microsoft OneCare and another unofficial patch
Brian Krebs at the SecurityFix today has questions about Microsoft OneCare. In fact, with Microsoft saying that OneCare is “more than just antivirus” you wonder whether that’s just marketing speak, or if that’s really the case…. he speculates about OneCare doing the registry patch that was a recommended workaround and a few other things related to OneCare.
Antivirus updates I think are one issue and I think there’s a good case for paying for them from Microsoft, but if they’re proactively making changes to workaround security bugs, that’s another matter and should be provided as a service to Windows users. OneCare is currently free (beta period), but they will likely charge at some point.
The other key in his article is another unofficial patch for the exploit. This from nod32 antivirus. This patch works on Win 9x/ME as well as Windows XP/2003/2000 and does not require a reboot. This would be a trusted source (antivirus company), so no worries about trojaned patches here. The only concern would be to fully test it before deploying on a production machine… It is nice to know there’s an unofficial option for Win9x/ME users now. I don’t know what other side effects this one might have, so be prepared for possible unforeseen side effects.