Eye on Microsoft: Michigan Airport Security Issues, Wal-Mart Cracked, 34 New Vulnerabilities

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-10-14 08:15:01 UTC
Modified: 2009-10-14 08:15:01 UTC

Summary: Windows security news from the past few days range from large impact to very large impact; Microsoft still drowns in "critical" vulnerabilities

● Michigan airport grounds website over malware risk [the Web site runs Windows Server based on case insensitivity]

An airport in Michigan reportedly took down its website late on Monday in response to a computer virus risk.

● Big-Box Breach: The Inside Story of Wal-Mart’s Hacker Attack

Wal-Mart uncovered the breach in November 2006, after a fortuitous server crash led administrators to a password-cracking tool that had been surreptitiously installed on one of its servers. Wal-Mart’s initial probe traced the intrusion to a compromised VPN account, and from there to a computer in Minsk, Belarus.

● Record number of patches for Windows?

[It's] being reported that fixes to 34 vulnerabilities are being released which does beg the question, how much faith do you have in the security of Microsoft products? Sure they have released patches to exploitable holes, but how many more are they and why (in the case of XP) is the system still proving vulnerable after all this time?

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Blizzard/Microsoft Unions Grow Ahead of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Apparently Starting Next Week (as Many as 30,000 Workers Laid Off by Year's End): Microsoft already fired about 5,000-6,000 workers this year by our estimates; that's not counting resignations compelled through pressure (i.e. pushed, did not jump) and contractors
"Victory Day" - Part II: Abject Defeat to Hypocrites and Objectionable People Who Strangle Women Whilst on Microsoft's Payroll: Someone is going to have to pay for this; it won't be us
Rust Propaganda Now Amplified by Slopfarms Powered by Microsoft LLMs, Encouraging the Outsourcing of GNU/Linux Distros to Microsoft/GitHub/NSA (and a Shift Away From GPL/Copyleft): Moving to Microsoft GitHub and adopting unfinished, untested code for highly critical bits
Control Your Systems, Control All Your Data: what does it take for us to control our own systems and data?
Misplacing Blame for Security Problems, Sometimes With LLM Slop That Blames "Linux" for Microsoft's Failures: Broken telephones and stochastic parrots beget plenty of Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
Links 10/05/2025: WW2 Revisionism, Further Tit-for-tat in India-Pakistan Conflict: Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/05/2025: Git Server and Great LLM DDoS of 2025: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 09, 2025: IRC logs for Friday, May 09, 2025
Links 09/05/2025: Inflation Rising and Rights to Protest Curtailed Some More: Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/05/2025: Good and Evil, LLMs Made the Web Worse Yet Again: Links for the day
IBM is Rotting With "Zero Internal Jobs" and Many PIPs (Performance Improvement Plans) on the Way, Typically a Fast Track Towards Layoffs Without Severance: At risk of giving air(time) to tribal sentiments, the internal joke at IBM is that to IBM "AI" stands for "All Indian"
European Patent Office (EPO) Faked "Revenue Expansion" by Granting Loads of Invalid, Illegal Patents; Staff Still Wants to Know Where That Money Went: Only about 30% of the EPO's patents are for EU entities/people
The Gerstnerisation of Microsoft: Seventh Wave of Microsoft Layoffs (Over 20,000 to be Cut) Allegedly Going to Start Shortly, Probably Start of Next Week, Microsoft Spreads Chaff and Noise Before the Big Axes Fall: we might be looking at about 50,000 people that Microsoft gets rid of this year
Links 09/05/2025: TeleMessage Blunder, More Distractions From Impending Mass Layoffs at Microsoft: Links for the day
GNU (and the FSF) Still Changing the World: Today, in 2025, GNU powers almost everything
Military-Grade Anti-Linux Microsoft Propaganda Using Microsoft LLMs in Fake 'News' Sites (Slopfarms): This is part of a pattern
Links 09/05/2025: Analog Computer and First time at FOSDEM: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 08, 2025: IRC logs for Thursday, May 08, 2025
Links 08/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google Again, India/Pakistan Tensions Continue to Grow, New Pope (US) Selected: Links for the day
"Victory Day" - Part I: That is the Day Microsofters Who Assault Women Pay for Their Actions in Foreign Land (Using "Guns for Hire" Who Attack Their Own Country for American Dollars): Adding a friend from Microsoft to the docket didn't help
Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security: Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Gemini Links 08/05/2025: Practical Gemini Use Case, Shutdown of the Blanket Fort Webring: Links for the day
Links 08/05/2025: "Slop Presidency", US Government Defunds Public Broadcasting: Links for the day
Lasse Fister, Organiser of Libre Graphics Meeting, Points Out the Code of Conduct is Likely Violated by the Same People Who Promote Codes of Conduct (and Then Bully Him Into Cancelling a Keynote): I am starting to see Lasse Fister as another victim
LLM Slop Attacks Not Only Sites of Free Software Projects But Also Bug Reporting Systems (Time-wasting, in Effect "DDoS"): Microsoft, the leading purveyor and promoter of slop, is a cancer
The Richard Stallman (RMS) "European Tour" Carries on In Spite of the Nuremberg Incident: Some people spoke about how they saw yesterday's talk
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 07, 2025: IRC logs for Wednesday, May 07, 2025

Eye on Microsoft: Michigan Airport Security Issues, Wal-Mart Cracked, 34 New Vulnerabilities

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