Zero-day IE after major security update.

So new fuel has been added to the browser war and the typical fan boy hatred of Microsoft products this week. On December 9th the typical begining of the month Tuesday update included 28 fixes, the highest in 5 years. 23 of the 28 fixes were marked critical patching Internet Explorer, Office, Sharepoint, Windows Media, and Visual Studio. Patches included fixes to Graphics Device Interface (GDI) previously patched (again) items. This actually wasn't the news however.

The news came from sans.org that even after the severe patches performed by Microsoft, a zero-day exploit is still remained open. Wikipedia defines this as zero-day (or zero-hour) attack or threat is a computer threat that tries to exploit unknown, undisclosed or patchfree computer application vulnerabilities. Believe it or not this is common practice with your software developers. There is no way to complete all software gaps or issues without reducing all services the product represents. What isn't like a manufacture however is to request users to switch to a rival temporarily while kinks are fixed.

As a typical IT junkie that I am, I found this sceptical. Apparently the communication chain between Redmond, Washington and London missed a link and IT evangelist have chose to issue commandments as opposed to finding sources. What I didn't expect was Microsoft claiming other browsers are vulnerable as well. So everyone is advising to use caution, like we haven't heard this before. There is several nasty bugs I've came across this month, they are getting quite nasty without protection. Keep it safe and clean out there.

I hope this serves as my rebuttal to the Apple virus scare attack I made last week. I hope both parties of the OS wars are happy. I however will practice transcendentalism when it comes to software. I'll use unpopular open-source for awhile.

So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ... Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson