Microsoft plans colossal Patch Tuesday next week - Computerworld

Computerworld - Microsoft today said it will deliver a record 16 security updates next week to patch a whopping 49 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Office and SharePoint.

Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle Security, called the massive update "daunting, again."

Four of the 16 updates were tagged with Microsoft's "critical" label, the highest threat ranking in its four-step scoring system. Another 10 were marked "important," the second-highest rating, while the remaining pair were labeled as "moderate."

Nine of the updates could be exploited by attackers to inject malicious code into vulnerable PCs, Microsoft said in its usual bare-bones advance notification of the updates scheduled for release Oct. 12. Microsoft often labels remote code executable bugs -- the most dangerous -- as important when the vulnerable components are not switched on by default or when other mitigating factors, such as defensive measures like ASLR and DEP, may protect some users.

Next week's Patch Tuesday is a record on almost every count.

The 16 updates -- Microsoft dubs them "bulletins" -- are a record, beating the count from August 2010 by two. The 49 individual patches easily exceeds the single-month record of 34, which was first set in October 2009 and repeated in this past June and August.

Microsoft has been shipping alternating large and small batches of fixes, with the larger-sized updates landing in even-numbered months, so October's big numbers shouldn't come as a shock. In August, for example, the company issued 14 bulletins patching 34 vulnerabilities. September's batch, however, included 9 bulletins that fixed 11 flaws.

"I have a theory about the large October updates," said Storms, pointing out that Microsoft released 13 bulletins and patched 34 vulnerabilities in the month last year, and issued 12 updates and fixed 21 flaws in October 2008. "It's the year-end financial and retail push by most companies, which go into lockdown mode the last two months of the year, when they don't update their systems," he said.

Twelve of the 16 bulletins are aimed at Windows, either the desktop or server editions, or in some cases both. Two from next week's slate affect Office -- Word and Excel, specifically -- and are likely patches for one or more file format vulnerabilities in those applications, said Storms.

One of the bulletins will address a problem in SharePoint, Microsoft's enterprise-grade collaboration server software. According to the advance notification, the SharePoint update will be related in some way to Office Web Apps, the online editions of Microsoft's Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications.

Other than the sheer number of updates users will have to apply, Storms also noted that several apply to the newest versions of Microsoft's operating system, Windows 7 on the desktop and Windows Server 2008 R2 on the server side.

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Texas sheriff on Jet Skier: 'All we want ... is a body' - Houston Chronicle

At a news conference on Thursday, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez discusses the disappearance of David Hartley from a lake that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.

ZAPATA — A Texas border sheriff on Thursday said he was calling directly on Zeta operatives to simply produce the body of a missing U.S. citizen believed shot and killed last week by drug gangs on Falcon Lake reservoir.

“All we want on this side is a body,” Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said at a news conference here attended by three congressmen and a host of other U.S. officials.

Gonzalez said he had made his entreaty privately through channels he could not disclose, but that now he was making his request public so the Zetas — an assassination hit squad now turned full-fledged cartel — would know he had no jurisdiction to go after them.

Mexican authorities resumed their search Thursday morning for the body of David Michael Hartley. This morning’s ongoing efforts, being conducted by at least 40 troops, comes one week after Hartley’s wife made a frantic 911 call reporting his slaying during a sightseeing trip.

There were conflicting media reports early Thursday suggesting that Mexican officials had stopped their search because of threats from drug cartels, prompting criticism from Gov. Rick Perry, who on Wednesday called on Mexican President Felipe Calderón to do a thorough search for the body.

Speaking in Houston, Perry, who's running for re-election, said he had not heard from Calderón. He was harshly critical of the Mexicans’ efforts to find the body.

“No, I’m not satisfied, I don’t think we’re doing enough. When you call off a search the way they did this morning, and give as the reason that the drug cartels are in control of that part of the state, something’s not right,” said Perry, after receiving the endorsement of the Houston Police Officer’s Union at their headquarters. “If they need some assistance, the United States needs to be visiting them about how we can give the assistance to take back control of that part of the state. "

“But we do not need to let our border continue deteriorate from the standpoint of having drug cartels telling us whether or not we can go in and bring back the body of an American that’s been killed, that is irresponsible,” Perry added.

Meanwhile, three members of the South Texas congressional delegation said they had called for more federal Homeland Security resources, not only along the border, but directly on Falcon Lake and Amistad reservoirs.

The congressmen said they wanted to emphasize that the incident did happen on Mexican waters and that people were safe to visit the U.S. side of the lake.

The ambush by three boatloads, as the couple was on Jet Skis viewing Mexican ruins, was the fifth reported confrontation with “pirates” on the border lake since the spring. It was the first involving a shooting death, followed by a gun chase extending to the U.S. side.

Tiffany Hartley and her family met Wednesday night with two Mexican state police commanders at an international crossing linking Roma, Texas, with the Mexican city of Miguel Aleman.

“I took them to the Roma ..... port of entry and brought them face to face with the two people that were in charge of the search,” Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar said. “One of the things I wanted to do was make sure the family met up with the people in charge of the search and let them know that the Mexican government is indeed searching.”

Cuellar said officials on Wednesday searched a tributary where the reported incident had occurred, and planned Thursday morning to widen the search into the lake.

Family members said they were encouraged by the meeting.

“They were extending the courtesy to come out and to try to put us at ease,” said Paul Hartley, David Hartley’s uncle who traveled from Tucson, Ariz.

The Mexicans are frank about their fears searching an area under known control of traffickers protecting prime real estate for contraband. On either side of the 60-mile-long lake are long stretches of privately owned scrub land, with the U.S. side patrolled primarily by a handful of game wardens.

Eleven mayors have been killed, and police on all levels are under pressure to moonlight for the cartels. Kidnappings are rampant, as are threats to harm officials and their families.

“We don’t want that on our conscience,” Paul Hartley said.

Tiffany Hartley said it was difficult returning to the lake to observe the Texas efforts in the search Wednesday, as it brought back memories of how last week’s sunny day on the lake ended in horror.

Laying a wreath in the water from Tuesday night’s well-attended memorial service gave her some peace, she said, but closure won’t come until her husband’s body is found.

She said she’s hoping that by speaking publicly, the Obama administration will ramp up border security more than has already been done. She’s also dealing with a nation that largely doesn’t want to believe her, with some television personalities insinuating she killed her husband.

“How on earth could I want to live this life without him?” she said. “I can’t even imagine why people would think that I would do this to him. But there’s people who don’t know us.”

Houston Chronicle staff writer James Pinkerton contributed to this report.

lbrezosky@express-news.net

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Report: Google Testing Search Results Preview Window - PC Magazine

Weeks after Google introduced Instant search and a real-time search feature, there are reports that the search engine giant is also working on an update that would show full page previews on the search results page.

According to a blog post from Patrick Altoft, director of search at U.K. SEO agency Branded3, Google on Wednesday started testing a feature that would display pop-up previews of the Web sites listed in search results.

When the searcher hovers the cursor over a magnifying glass icon to the right of a result link, a preview of the linked page will pop up. This keeps users from having to navigate away from the initial search results page. The search terms are highlighted in orange and expanded to give a preview of the details on the page, should the user visit it. Click anywhere on the preview and the browser navigates directly to that page.

So far, it appears to just be a test and is not showing up for all users. Google did not respond to a request for comment.

It comes several weeks after Google introduced Google Instant, the predictive feature that displays results as a user types. Recently Google got some flack from critics because of certain words that were blacklisted from Google Instant. Google, however, said certain terms are omitted from results based on an algorithm that determines if they could potentially yield offensive results.

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