24 Oct 2008 UPDATE:
Microsoft issues critical out of
cycle server security patch update for Windows
Microsoft has issued an advance notification that it is to
release an emergency "critical" Windows patch today.
The lack of details around the patch for Windows 2000, XP and
Server 2003 has prompted speculation that a serious vulnerability
is involved.
Microsoft's Christopher Budd said the update would be released
at 10h00 Pacific Time (18h00 UK time) in a
security response centre blog posting late Wednesday.
It is over a year since Microsoft released an emergency patch
ahead of its scheduled patch releases on the second Tuesday of
every month.
The last unscheduled patch in April 2007 fixed a vulnerability
with
.ani files that was being exploited by malicious code hosted on
websites.
US media reports quote analysts as saying Microsoft must
consider the bug to be serious for the software company to rush out
this type of update.