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Microsoft Readies Critical Exchange Update
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-05-04
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Next week's Patch Tuesday for Microsoft will include a patch to fix a critical issue with the company's Exchange email server software.
 | | Microsoft Readies Critical Exchange Update |  |
Exchange has been a core product for Microsoft in maintaining its foothold in hundreds of companies around the world. Outlook ties in with Exchange, leading to demand for the Office productivity suite that contains Outlook and programs like Word and Excel.
The prevalence of Exchange in company environments makes it a critical component for both customers and Microsoft. With the forthcoming patch updates on May 8th, Microsoft will deploy one addressing a Critical problem in Exchange.
It is not an issue that has been exposed previously, judging by a look at Secunia's advisories for Exchange 2000 and 2003. The last serious vulnerability in Exchange was a Calendar problem, and that was patched in May 2006.
The problem with patching a Critical problem in Exchange is the footrace that ensues between administrators who may have to take Exchange offline to patch it, and the criminals who will try to attack Exchange servers before they can be patched.
Companies generally like to schedule such updates out of regular business hours. Scheduling a patch update for 3 a.m. doesn't help if an attack arrives at 3 p.m. the day before it. Few businesses are enlightened enough to let the admins drop email offline during the day unless there is a massive problem to fix.
We won't know how critical the Exchange fix is until Microsoft releases the patch next week. Secunia rated last year's Calendar issue as Highly Critical, the fourth-highest rating out of five. That problem allowed execution of arbitrary code.
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Tags: Microsoft, Exchange, Security, Patch
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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