Chris Christiansen, an analyst with IDC in Framingham, Mass., said the early move by Microsoft to release the patch is not a surprise because the company has "grown much more responsive over the last few years to security vulnerabilities." The company created its regularly-scheduled update cycle in response to earlier customer concerns of previous piecemeal efforts and is now breaking from its regular schedule because of the severity of this vulnerability, he said.
"I see this as a good thing, that they see this as a schedule that needs to be broken" in this case, Christiansen said.
“We are very excited and glad that Microsoft broke its usual schedule” for releasing patches, said Matt Kesner, the chief technology officer at Fenwick & West, a Mountain View, Calif.-based law firm. IT staffers at the firm met today to discuss plans for testing and rolling out the patches on an emergency basis, Kesner said.
Fenwick & West had already looked at Microsoft’s workarounds for the flaw but had been unsure of their efficacy. At the same time, the law firm was reluctant to download any unofficial third-party patch to fix the problem.
The Arlington County, Va., government has already begun testing the patches and plans to roll them out as quickly as possible, starting with the most critical systems first, said Dave Jordan, chief information security officer for the county government.
Pete Lindstrom, an analyst with Spire Security in Malvern, Pa., said the patch should give Windows users peace of mind, but could also lull users into a false sense of security. Instead of focusing on individual flaws, users need to look at overall security issues to better protect themselves and their companies, he said.
"I think people focus on individual vulnerabilities because the jury is out on what a strategic vulnerability approach should look like," Lindstrom said. "There's no reason for people to focus on this particular vulnerability except that this is the one we're focusing on."
Computerworld's Todd R. Weiss contributed to this report.
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