Microsoft has cracked open new Windows 7 to commercial sponsorship with desktop themes from advertisers. The firm declared desktops from Ducati, Infiniti, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Twentieth Century Fox under a pilot program that’ll execute until next October. Microsoft also build its own new Winodws 7 themes for Xbox Gears of War, Zune, and Bing.
Microsoft said the themes will give a robust sponsorship chance that’ll extend to latest Windows 7 borders and sounds, gadgets and Internet Explorer 8 add-ons that ultimately send people to the advertiser’s home page. Microsoft is also touting ad space for companies on its MSN and Windows Live properties. The firm said in a statement the Windows themes would helps consumers customize their technology to shine the things in life they are most passionate about as long as that’s Porches, sugary fizzy drinks, and films. The declaration attracted support from advertisers who spoke in terms of chances for their brands to hire with people.
Microsoft first boasted the idea of ads in the software a few years back, and last month announced Office 2010 Starter Edition, a functionally limited version of the forthcoming Office 2010 that’ll only be available pre-loaded on new PCs and be will funded by advertising. Microsoft has recruited country-music queen to raise IE 8 among the red-state, Opry-loving, web-surfing demographic. In a delightfully self-slighting performance.
In another development, in a security advisory, Microsoft admitted that a fault in SMB (Server Message Block), a Microsoft-made network file and print-sharing protocol, could be used by attackers to lame new Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines. The zero-day vulnerability was first reported by Canadian researcher when he exposed the fault and posted proof-of-concept attack code to the Full Disclosure security mailing list. According to it, working with the defects crashes Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 systems so thoroughly that the only recourse is to manually power off the computers.
Microsoft is aware of public, detailed effort code that would cause a system to stop operating or become unreliable. The company is not aware of attacks to exploit the reported vulnerability at this time. The exposure could not be used by hackers to install malicious code on a new Windows 7 system. Both SMBv1 and its successor, SMBv2, comprises of the faults. Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 are not impacted.
Attacks could be focussed at any browser, not just Internet Explorer (IE), Microsoft warned. After tricking users into visiting a malicious site or a previously-compromised domain, hackers could feed them specially-forged URIs (uniform resource identifier), and then crash their PCs with distorted SMB packets. Microsoft said it may plot the problem, but didn’t spell out a schedule or commit to an out-of-cycle update before the next regularly-scheduled Patch. Rather, the company suggested users stop TCP ports 139 and 445 at the firewall. Doing so, however, would invalid browsers as well as a host of critical services, including network file-sharing and IT group policies.
No comments:
Post a Comment