Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Security
Virus and Vulnerability Roundup
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Q&A: Microsoft exec explains the early WMF patch release

'This is what you would receive if this was Patch Tuesday,' says Debby Fry Wilson

January 6, 2006 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Microsoft Corp. yesterday released an out-of-cycle patch for the Windows Metafile (WMF) flaw amid growing concerns of widespread exploits aimed at the vulnerability. In an interview with Computerworld, Debby Fry Wilson, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, talked last night about the company's efforts to get the patch out and about the security community's response to the whole issue.
What prompted the release of the patch on Thursday after Microsoft initially announced that it would be releasing it only next Tuesday? There has been a lot of discussion and commentary about the issue since it first surfaced on Dec. 27. There's been a lot of variance in opinion in terms of how big the issue is and how fast it is spreading and so forth. Our analysis and guidance has been consistent that although the attacks are serious, they have been fairly stable in terms of spread. With that, we determined the best course of action was to put all our resources into a comprehensive update.
Because this is the first time we have gone on this fast of a track, we were somewhat conservative in our estimation, and we thought the best-case scenario was the Tuesday monthly release cycle. We put teams on this 24 hours, around the clock. They finished the testing this morning, and with the early completion of the testing and also with the very strong customer sentiment that we got, we decided to release it.
Is this the shortest time you have taken to develop and release a patch? This is the fastest we have ever produced and tested an update at Microsoft. We have completed it in approximately nine to 10 days. The development of the code fix actually ended fairly quickly. What takes a long time is testing through all of the complex testing matrices that we do today. We do that because customers have been very adamant that they want to install an update just one time. The other complexity, of course, is that we released simultaneously in 23 different languages and for all platforms.
Why did you call it a comprehensive update? This is a complete package, not a partial fix. This is what you would receive if this was Patch Tuesday -- a fully tested patch [released] simultaneously for all platforms and all languages.
How effective were the work-arounds that Microsoft suggested early on for the problem? In some cases, our work-arounds are more complex and maybe not the most effective means of protection. In this case, we had



Jump to comments

Viruses

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER
Approximately 60 percent of data migration projects overrun time or budget, while some fail completely. Download this white paper, "Enhancing Your Chance for Successful Data Migration," to learn the critical steps you need to take to execute a data migration project with minimum cost and risk to your business.
WHITE PAPER
Read the Gartner research note to learn why the TCO of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50% lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.
WHITE PAPER
Economic downturns have a tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost competitive or that are out of synch with industry trends. This IDC White Paper presents the results of an IDC survey of 330 companies in Western Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas that measures the receptiveness to Linux and takes into consideration changing views driven by the disruptive economic environment that businesses face today.