The Evil Empire
Information about Microsoft, bugs, security holes, and dirty business tactics.
Updated irregularly (about once per week)
January 2005
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Older archives
May 25, 2004
Windows security leak
A security leak has been discovered in Windows 2000 that allows users who have expired passwords to unexpectedly log on to the Microsoft Windows 2000 domain. This issue occurs if the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) is exactly eight characters long. More... [ORF.at]
May 18, 2004
New Windows security leak
Roozbeh Afrasiabi has reported a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to gain escalated privileges. The problem is that "desktop.ini" files may contain CLSID references to arbitrary executables in the "[.ShellClassInfo]" section. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary files with another user's privileges. More... [Secunia]
New Outlook security leak
http-equiv has reported a vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook 2003, allowing malicious people to perform illegal actions through emails. Microsoft Outlook 2003 is supposed to protect the user by opening mails in the restricted security zone, thereby preventing the use of active scripting, download of files and more. However, it is possible to bypass the security settings by embedding an OLE Object with reference to a Windows media file in a Rich Text Format (RTF) message. More... [secunia]
May 03, 2004
Sasser Computer Worm Infects Hundreds of Thousands of Systems
A computer worm called Sasser may have infected hundreds of thousands of computers through the Internet and is still spreading, possibly disrupting business today, a security software expert said. The worm, which doesn't need to be attached to an e-mail to spread, causes a computer to shut down and then reboot several times, apparently without causing any permanent damage, said Mikko Hyppoenen, director of virus research with Helsinki-based F-Secure Oyj. The worm was detected Saturday at 4 a.m. Finnish time, he said.
Sasser exploits a flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 2000 and Windows XP, the two most common operating systems, Hyppoenen said. Increased network traffic generated by the worm, which is similar to the Blaster worm that spread last August, might slow other systems as well, Hyppoenen said. More...
