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Microsoft regularly issues security updates, but it added a little something extra on Tuesday: it's letting all customers, even those using older versions of Windows, update their software.
This move is an attempt to avoid another ransomware outbreak like WannaCry, also called WannaCrypt, which rocked the web last month.
"The WannaCrypt ransomware served as an all too real example of the danger of cyber attacks to individuals and businesses globally," Adrienne Hall, general manager of Microsoft's Cyber Defense Operations Center, wrote in a blog post. "In reviewing the updates for this month, some vulnerabilities were identified that pose elevated risk of cyber attacks by government organizations, sometimes referred to as nation-state actors or other copycat organizations."
Microsoft said it made the decision to apply this assortment of updates to provide further protection against potential attacks with similar characteristics as WannaCrypt. The security updates will be delivered automatically through Windows Update to devices running Windows 10, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7.
Source: CNET
Also at Ars Technica
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Wednesday June 14 2017, @03:01PM (3 children)
Disk images were the first order of the day for protection against drive corruption or failure. The base configs didn't change much, if at all, so a TrueImage backup or similar clone of a partition would generally be good for life. Assuming you have a spare, then hard drive issues (mostly (E)IDE/P-ATA interfaces for the x86 and SCSI-1 for the Sun boxes, since you asked) are not a major problem - there was always some way to being a drive and the image together, even if it meant temporarily connecting the drive to another system. I guess these days you'd also be looking to add some kind of OS-level drive snapshot or journalling facility into the mix to enable rollbacks as well, or perhaps the ability to restore from an image contained on a hidden partition.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
I had a Windows CE laptop that had the OS and programs on a ROM chip, user files on an SD card, and no optical/hard drive. Why MS can't lock their system down to ROM (even though that would piss off Linux users like me) is beyond me. Put it on ROM and all you have to do is press reset if you do something stupid. And it boots up in a few seconds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:53PM
I have a similar laptop with DOS 2.0 (now restrictive open source even).
The reason what you suggest won't work is the invention of Return-Oriented Programming [ucsd.edu] (and ubiquitous network access).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:35PM
Eventually that motherboard etc will give up and then there might be a need to have software replacements. It's easier to do when there's a working system to verify theories on operation on.