Microsoft Plugs a Dozen Office Security Holes

Microsoft has plugged no less than 12 security holes in its Office System. According to Tami Gallupe, MSRC Release Manager, all of the four security bulletins come with a maximum severity rating of Critical, a rating associated with the risk of allowing remote code execution. Five vulnerabilities impacting Office Outlook, Office and Office Web were privately reported to Microsoft. But the remaining seven holes are a mix of both privately and publicly reported vulnerabilities impacting the Excel component of the Office System.

"11 are rated ‘critical’ and one is rated ‘important’. Two of the critical issues affect Office Web Components and have the potential to be the worst of the bunch. Office Web Components are installed as part of multiple applications. The vulnerabilities affecting them can be triggered by simply visiting a web page with some attacker-controlled content. Seven of the critical issues affect Microsoft Excel and require a victim to open a malicious file to trigger the vulnerability. The remaining issues affect Outlook and Office," Rob Keith, Security Response Engineer.

All the vulnerabilities are exploitable via malformed documents and, in the eventuality of a successful exploit, could permit the attacker to take complete control of an affected system. According to Microsoft, all the flaws put at risks both Windows and Mac users. This because the Redmond company ships not only a version of Office for Windows, but also a flavor aimed at Apple's proprietary platform.

Download Free Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 from Microsoft

Microsoft is indeed offering free copies of Windows, and not just XP SP2, but also Vista. I know that the hottest downloads, at this point in time, are related to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3, but I also know that you will jump at the chance of grabbing the two Windows clients completely free. The sole downside is the fact that both copies of the operating system come as Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image. Which means that they are essentially VPC Hard Disk Images designed for test driving websites in both Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 on Vista and XP SP2.

That's right! Microsoft is offering access to free downloads of Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2. I know it doesn't sound at all like Microsoft, but just bear with me, it will make sense in the end. Even though the Redmond company's Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer revealed in the past that open source was not the way to go for Microsoft and that a free version of Windows was completely out of the question, the fact of the matter is that it was not entirely true.

There are no less than six downloads available completely for free, including IE6_VPC.EXE (435.1 MB); IE7_VPC.EXE (434.3 MB); IE7-VIS1.exe (700.0 MB); IE7-VIS2.rar (700.0 MB); IE8_VPC.EXE (438.6 MB) and IS7-VIS3.rar (590.5 MB). Of course, for all you will need Virtual PC 2007, available here

IE8 Beta 1 vs. Firefox 3.0 Beta 3 vs. Opera 9.5 Beta vs. Safari 3 Beta

The fact of the matter is that today you will be able to access a sneak peek of the future of the browser market via all these beta releases. And at this point in time, all the products mentioned above are on par in terms of support for Web standards taking into consideration the Acid2 Test. But of course, as of March 3, 2008, we can take all of them a step further. Long story short, while all the betas mentioned above pass the Acid2 test without any problems, the same cannot be said about Acid3. In fact, Acid3 slaughters all the browsers from IE8 Beta 1, to Firefox 3.0 Beta 3, to Opera 9.5 Beta and to Safari 3 Beta. Some more than the others.

When you talk about the future of the browser market, there are four products that will ultimately divide and share the overwhelming majority of users among them. These are Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.0, Opera 9.5 and Safari 3. Neither of these browsers is wrapped up at this time, but all of them are rushing toward the finish line. And with the first beta of IE8 revealed to the public as of MIX08, in Las Vegas on March 5, 2008. We now have a complete picture of where the browser market is going. The future can be summarized via a rather simple equation, and can be defined today as: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 vs. Firefox 3.0 Beta 3 vs. Opera 9.5 Beta vs. Safari 3 Beta.

Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate 2 (RC2)

"Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 is available to the public. Specific registry settings will allow you to be offered SP3 via Windows Update," Microsoft revealed. And the Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate 2.exe is nothing more than the registry scrip that will permit end users to tweak their copies of XP in order to identify the XP SP3 bits on the Windows Update servers. "Microsoft is allowing Windows XP Service Pack 2 machines to be offered Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 via Windows Update. Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be offered on Windows Update when Service Pack 3 releases in the first half of 2008," reads the Overview section of the documentation accompanying the XP SP3 download.

That's right! Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 is available for download and you can grab it right here. Initially, Microsoft released XP SP3 RC2 on the heels of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RTM and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 1 RTM on February 7, 2008. At that time, it became clear that although the development
milestones of XP SP3, Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008, were joined at the hip, the third and final service pack for XP was not part of the intimate synchronization between the latest Windows client and server platforms