Windows Genuine Advantage lawsuit fizzles out

Gregg Keizer at Computerworld reports that the lawsuit filed in the wake of Windows Genuine Advantage phone home discoveries has been dismissed.

Multiple lawsuits filed in July 2006 claimed that Microsoft mislead users by labeling the WGA software as a security update, and failed to tell customers that WGA collected information from their PCs, then frequently “phoned home” the data to Microsoft’s servers. The plaintiffs later combined their cases and asked the court to grant the joint lawsuit as a class-action.

Last month, the judge denied class action status. Last week the whole thing just fizzled out.

Oh well.

MS-DEFCON 2: Black Tuesday patches are out

And what a crop they are…

As expected, Microsoft has just released 13 Security Bulletins which plug 26 separately identified security holes in Windows and Office. The list is mind-numbing.

According to SANS Internet Storm Center, only one of the Security Bulletins has a known exploit. That Bulletin, MS10-015, covers a 17-year-old security hole in Windows that I described two weeks ago. I wouldn’t worry about it for the moment.

The MS Security Research & Defense page has details about potential attack vectors, and speculation about how soon the bad guys will be able to take advantage of the security holes.

Keep yer shirt on. Let’s see how things shake out. We remain at MS-DEFCON 2: Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don’t do it.