Just visiting a website could be enough to give you a virus..
Microsoft has published a patch for a major security flaw in its software's handling of the JPEG graphics format and urged customers to use a new tool to locate the many applications that are vulnerable.
The critical flaw has to do with how Microsoft's operating systems and other software process the widely used JPEG image format and could let attackers create an image file that would run a malicious program on a victim's computer as soon as the file is viewed. Because the software giant's Internet Explorer browser is vulnerable, Windows users could fall prey to an attack just by visiting a website that has affected images.
The severity of the flaw had some security experts worried that a virus that exploits the issue may be on the way.
The flaw affects various versions of at least a dozen Microsoft software applications and operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Office XP, Office 2003, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Project, Visio, Picture It and Digital Image Pro. The software giant has a full list of affected applications in the advisory on its website:
Windows XP Service Pack 2, which is still being distributed to many customers' computers, is not vulnerable to the flaw.
The JPEG processing flaw enables a program hidden in an image file to execute on a victim's system. The flaw is unrelated to another image vulnerability found in early August. That vulnerability, in a common code library designed to support the Portable Network Graphics, or PNG, format, affected applications running on Linux, Windows and Apple's Mac OS X. Both the JPEG, which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, and PNG formats are commonly used by websites. Visit:
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