[sigh] We Can Breathe Again, At Least For Now
As of 5:00 pm Eastern time today, Microsoft has a patch available through Windows/Microsoft Update to fix the Windows Metafile vulnerabiliy that I mentioned on Monday. Once you have installed the patch from Microsoft, you can go ahead and uninstall the patch from Ilfak Guilfanov by going to Add/Remove Programs and uninstalling the entry "Windows WMF Metafile Vulnerability HotFix"
I am slightly surprised that we are seeing this patch so quickly. Initially, Microsoft stated that it would not release the patch until "Patch Tuesday", the second Tuesday of each month, so that the patch could get plenty of QA testing. Microsoft has subsequently stated that after discovering this vulnerability, they are going to delve into their proprietary standards to check if similar "features" were included in other Microsoft file formats.
Also, over the past few days, a few problems have been discovered that were caused by the patch from Ilfak. The biggest problem is that it has created printing problems for some people, mostly if they are using networked printers. The only reason that this should be happening is because the printing is relying on the fallback "feature" built in to the Windows Metafile format that Ilfak’s patch disabled.
