Microsoft Windows XP Professional ISO image with service pack 3 is the latest edition of Windows XP series. Get Windows XP SP3 ISO Full Version Free Download through our direct link available for the users of the Softlay.net. How to download a Windows update manually. Content provided by Microsoft. Applies to: Windows XP Windows 7 Windows Vista. Select Product Version. Windows Update can help you download updates. But if you want to manually download a certain program in the Windows Update list, such as a Service Pack or a specific security update, follow. Microsoft rushes out emergency security update to fix critical Windows flaw. Your PC should download the update later today, if it hasn’t already. To verify if your PC has the critical. Microsoft has just released an emergency security patch update for all its unsupported version of Windows, including Windows XP, Vista, Windows 8, Server 2003 and 2008 Editions. So, if your organization, for some reason, is still running on Windows XP or Vista, you are strongly advised to download and APPLY PATCH NOW!
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with 257 posters participatingOnce again, Microsoft has opted to patch the out-of-support Windows XP. Dan has written about the new patch, the circumstances around the flaws it addresses, and why Microsoft has chosen to protect Windows XP users. While Microsoft's position is a tricky one, we argue in this post first published in 2014 that patching is the wrong decision: it sends a clear message to recalcitrant corporations that they can stick with Windows XP, insecure as it is, because if anything too serious is found, Microsoft will update it anyway. Windows 10 contains a wide range of defense-in-depth measures that will never be included in Windows XP: every time an organization resists upgrading to Microsoft's latest operating system, it jeopardizes its own security. Back in 2014, it was an Internet Explorer patch that Microsoft released after Windows XP's end of support; this time around the patches are for flaws in the kernel and file sharing drivers. While this means that the situations are not quite identical, we nonetheless feel that the arguments against releasing a patch for an out-of-support operating system in 2014 hold up today. It was bad then; it's still bad now.
Microsoft officially ended support of the twelve-and-a-half-year-old Windows XP operating system a few weeks ago. Except it apparently didn't, because the company has included Windows XP in its off-cycle patch to fix an Internet Explorer zero-day that's receiving some amount of in-the-wild exploitation. The unsupported operating system is, in fact, being supported.
Explaining its actions, Microsoft says that this patch is an 'exception' because of the 'proximity to the end of support for Windows XP.'The decision to release this patch is a mistake, and the rationale for doing so is inadequate.
A one-off patch of this kind makes no meaningful difference to the security of a platform. Internet Explorer received security patches in 11 of the last 12 Patch Tuesdays. Other browsers such as Chrome and Firefox receive security updates on a comparable frequency.
Web browsers are complex. They're necessarily exposed to all manner of potentially hostile input that the user can't really control, and as such, they're a frequent target for attacks. They need regular updates and ongoing maintenance. The security of a browser is not contingent on any one bugfix; it's dependent on a continuous delivery of patches, fixes, and improvements. One-off 'exceptions' do not make Internet Explorer on Windows XP 'safe.' There's no sense in which this patch means that all of a sudden it's now 'OK' to use Internet Explorer on Windows XP.
And yet it seems inevitable that this is precisely how it will be received. The job of migrating away from Windows XP just got a whole lot harder. I'm sure there are IT people around the world who are now having to argue with their purse-string-controlling bosses about this very issue and IT people who have had to impress on their superiors that they need the budget to upgrade from Windows XP because Microsoft won't ship patches for it any longer. Microsoft has made these IT people into liars. 'You said we had to spend all this money because XP wasn't going to get patched any more. But it is!'
Bosses who were convinced that they could stick with Windows XP because Microsoft would blink are now vindicated.
After all, if Microsoft can blink once, who's to say it won't do so again? The next Patch Tuesday patch for Internet Explorer is almost certainly going to include flaws that affect Internet Explorer on Windows XP: the nature of software means that most flaws in Internet Explorer 7 (supported for the remainder of Windows Vista's life cycle) and Internet Explorer 8 (tied to Windows 7's life cycle) will also be flaws in Internet Explorer 7 and 8 when run on Windows XP. Many of them will also hit Internet Explorer 6.
In fact, this is precisely the pattern we've seen with this flaw. The first in-the-wild exploits hit only Internet Explorer 9, 10, and 11, on Windows 7 and 8. As security firm FireEye reports, it's only later that attacks for (unsupported) Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP materialized.
Virtually every time Microsoft updates one of its remaining supported platforms, the company will also simultaneously be disclosing a zero-day vulnerability for Windows XP (something Apple has recently been criticized for doing). The patch list for May's Patch Tuesday—less than two weeks away—isn't out yet, but based on Internet Explorer's track record, it's highly likely that it's going to get updated, and it's highly likely that these updates will reveal exploitable flaws on Windows XP.![Emergency Emergency](/uploads/1/2/6/0/126066049/946928385.jpg)
By Microsoft's 'proximity' argument, those flaws should be patched on Windows XP, too. In fact, it's hard to see a time when 'proximity' won't be an issue. It's inevitable that Patch Tuesday will reveal exploitable flaws for the unsupported operating system, and it's similarly inevitable that at least some of those flaws will get exploited. With Windows XP's market share as high as it is, there was never any realistic chance that an exploit would not materialize in 'proximity' to the end of support.
People using Windows XP are going to be exploited through known but unpatched vulnerabilities. That is what the end of support means. That is its unavoidable consequence. For as long as Windows XP has a substantial number of users, there will be calls for 'one more patch' to be released. There's nothing special about this latest flaw that warrants special treatment, and the next weeks and months will see the disclosure and exploitation of many more similar flaws. If this bug was fixed, all those bugs should get fixed, too.
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The zero-day flaw and its exploitation is unfortunate, and Microsoft is likely smarting from government calls for people to stop using Internet Explorer. The company had three ways it could respond. It could have done nothing—stuck to its guns, maintained that the end of support means the end of support, and encouraged people to move to a different platform. It could also have relented entirely, extended Windows XP's support life cycle for another few years and waited for attrition to shrink Windows XP's userbase to irrelevant levels. Or it could have claimed that this case is somehow 'special,' releasing a patch while still claiming that Windows XP isn't supported.
None of these options is perfect. A hard-line approach to the end-of-life means that there are people being exploited that Microsoft refuses to help. A complete about-turn means that Windows XP will take even longer to flush out of the market, making it a continued headache for developers and administrators alike.
But the option Microsoft took is the worst of all worlds. It undermines efforts by IT staff to ditch the ancient operating system and undermines Microsoft's assertion that Windows XP isn't supported, while doing nothing to meaningfully improve the security of Windows XP users. The upside? It buys those users at best a few extra days of improved security. It's hard to say how that was possibly worth it.
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with 131 posters participating, including story authorA day after a ransomware worm infected 75,000 machines in 100 countries, Microsoft is taking the highly unusual step of issuing patches that immunize Windows XP, 8, and Server 2003, operating systems the company stopped supporting as many as three years ago.
Microsoft also rolled out a signature that allows its Windows Defender antivirus engine to provide 'defense-in-depth' protection. The moves came after attackers on Friday used a recently leaked attack tool developed by the National Security Agency to virally spread ransomware known as 'WCry' or 'WannaCrypt.' Within hours, computer systems around the world were crippled, prompting hospitals to turn away patients while telecoms, banks, and companies such as FedEx were forced to turn off computers for the weekend.The chaos surprised many security watchers because Microsoft issued an update in March that patched the underlying vulnerability in Windows 7 and most other supported versions of Windows. (Windows 10 was never vulnerable.) Friday's events made it clear that enough unpatched systems exist to cause significant outbreaks that could happen again in the coming days or months. In a blog post published late Friday night, Microsoft officials wrote:
We also know that some of our customers are running versions of Windows that no longer receive mainstream support. That means those customers will not have received the above mentioned Security Update released in March. Given the potential impact to customers and their businesses, we made the decision to make the Security Update for platforms in custom support only, Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2003, broadly available for download here.
This decision was made based on an assessment of this situation, with the principle of protecting our customer ecosystem overall, firmly in mind.
This is possibly the first time ever that Microsoft has issued a patch for a product decommissioned so long ago. While the company issued an emergency patch for Windows XP in 2014, it came the same week support for that version ended, making the exception seem less unusual. This time around, the emergency patches are being applied to OS versions that Microsoft stopped supporting as many as three years ago.Crucial entry point still missing
Microsoft announced the patches around the same time it said it still doesn't know what the precise starting point was for Friday's WCry outbreak. One of the key questions circulating once Friday's viral outbreak appeared to be contained was how did the self-replicating worm first gain entry so it could go on to spread from vulnerable machine to vulnerable machine.
At least two security firms—FOX-IT here and CrowdStrike here—said spam that sent fake invoices to end users provided the crucial initial vector to seed the self-replicating attack, but none of the three companies have produced copies. Some researchers doubted a generic e-mail campaign could have been the sole initial vector without leaving a mountain of evidence that would have surfaced by now. In a blog post published Friday night, Microsoft officials wrote:
We haven't found evidence of the exact initial entry vector used by this threat, but there are two scenarios we believe are highly possible for this ransomware family:
- Arrival through social engineering emails designed to trick users to run the malware and activate the worm-spreading functionality with the SMB exploit
- Infection through SMB exploit when an unpatched computer can be addressed in other infected machines
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The blog post went on to say that the worm 'executes massive scanning on Internet IP addresses to find and infect other vulnerable computers.'
FOX-IT also said in its blog post that 'there appear to be multiple infection vectors,' but the post didn't elaborate. Maarten van Dantzig, a researcher with FOX-IT, said on Twitter here and here that he suspects e-mail was the initial vector for some, but not all, of the outbreaks. Researchers from Cisco Systems Talos group went even further, writing: 'Our research does not yet support that e-mail was the initial infection vector. Analysis is ongoing.'
The possibility that ransomware can spread virally across the Internet without any form of end-user interaction is a chilling prospect. Internet-wide scans performed in recent weeks show that as many as 2.3 million computers have the necessary port 445 exposed to the Internet. Those scans also reveal that 1.3 million Windows machines haven't been patched.
People who are running unpatched machines should take action immediately. The best measure is to patch the vulnerability using this link for supported versions or this one for XP, 8, and Server 2003. Those who can't patch should ensure their computers are locked down by, among other things, blocking outside access to ports 138, 139, and 445. They should also disable version 1 of the Server Message Block protocol.
Friday's attack could have been much worse, had the perpetrators not slipped up by failing to register an Internet domain that was hardcoded into their exploit as a sort of 'kill switch' they could activate if they wanted to shut down the worm. That made it possible for a quick-acting researcher to register the domain and stop much of the attack just as it was gaining momentum.
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A new attack could come at any time. Next time, defenders may not be so lucky. As Microsoft's blog posts makes clear, vulnerable machines aren't only a danger to themselves, but to the entire world at large.