Microsoft sets emergency Windows patch for Monday

Microsoft today said it will issue an emergency patch for the critical Windows shortcut bug on Monday, August 2.

The company said it is satisfied with the quality of the “out-of-band” update — Microsoft’s term for a patch that falls outside the usual monthly delivery schedule — but also acknowledged that it has tracked an upswing in attacks.

“In the past few days, we’ve seen an increase in attempts to exploit the vulnerability,” Christopher Budd, a spokesman for the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), said in a entry to the team’s blog. “We firmly believe that releasing the update out of band is the best thing to do to help protect our customers.”

Budd said that Microsoft would release the patch on Monday at approximately 1 p.m. ET, 10 a.m. PT.

Two weeks ago, Microsoft confirmed a flaw in how Windows parses shortcut files, the small files displayed by icons on the desktop, on the toolbar and in the Start menu that launch applications and documents when clicked. By crafting malicious shortcuts, hackers could automatically execute malware whenever a user viewed the shortcut or the contents of a folder containing the malevolent shortcut.

You can read the full article here.