Hands-On Project 11-1

I began by going to the Microsoft security website.

I then viewed one of the security vulnerabilities that affected Microsoft Office Products.

This screenshot explains in detail what the vulnerability potentially allowed an attacker to do, and explains how Microsoft fixed it. It also informs us of how Microsoft gained awareness of the vulnerability. Customers are simply advised to update their computer through Windows Update in order to patch the security vulnerability.

I see that many of the security vulnerabilities apply to Microsoft Windows in general, and this would be because the computer system as a whole is much more broad then a specific program being targeted, such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Outlook. Many of these vulnerabilities are very similar in that the attacker convinces the user to open a malicious file, and then the attacker would be able to take over the computer. These malicious files applied to MANY programs, so the file type could be one of many different extensions.

Next, I went to the United States CERT website.

The alert I read about affects Windows systems dating all the way back to 1995. This alert is a type of malicious file that is able to morph and change its appearance after every infection. The file is transferred via USB, CD, DVD, ZIP files, RAR files, and across networks.

The above screenshot lists all of the recommendations provided by US-CERT to protect your system against this threat. Many of the alerts deal with vulnerabilities in Microsoft systems. VERY FEW deal with iOS