Microsoft to push out-of-cycle emergency patch

by Steve Ragan - Oct 23 2008, 18:11

If the Redmond headquarters of Microsoft were a starship, there would be a stark feminine voice smoothly stating "Red Alert" after Microsoft recently announced an out-of-cycle patch for its operating systems.

Microsoft goes out-of-cycle to address critical security issue.(IMG:J.Anderson)

The out-of-cycle warning came late Wednesday evening. The reason it is important, and, in some terms, news worthy, is that Microsoft rarely releases patches outside of its normal Patch Tuesday releases.As is common with advance notifications, there is little information available on the patch. What Microsoft has confirmed is that the patch is out-of-cycle, and is rated 'Critical' for Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003. Windows Vista and Server 2008 will get this patch as well, but it is only listed as 'Important' for those platforms.The flag placed on the exploit shows that it can allow remote code execution. At 3:00pm EST Microsoft will release full details, and hold a Webcast that explains exactly what the patch addresses.The last time Microsoft went out-of-cycle to address a critical security issue was in April of 2007. At that time, Microsoft was fighting a rash of targeted exploits in its operating systems and Office software. That out-of-cycle patch addressed issues in the way Windows processed .ani animated cursor files after the .ani exploit was seen quickly moving about online, and being exploited heavily.This new out-of-cycle patch appears to be unknown by the security community at large, which only makes it all the more curious. IT administrators and home users should expect an update notice and patch accordingly.There will be more information as Microsoft releases it.

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Microsoft to push out-of-cycle emergency patch

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