Microsoft to Offer Patches to U.S. Govt. First

[SDK]

Microsoft Corp. is to give the U.S. government priority in fixing security holes in Windows and other software, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Under a plan to take effect later this year, Microsoft will give the U.S. Air Force versions of software "patches" to fix serious security vulnerabilities up to a month before they are available to others, the paper said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will give advance notice of problems to other government agencies and distribute patches to them, the Journal said, citing officials at Microsoft and the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

Source : http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...technologyNews

[omnipotent0689]

Heh, I already knew this. As a member of the World's Finest (USMC), I am glad that the Dept of Homeland Security is looking out for the DoD. An individual may or may not like Microsoft products, but you can only use what the majority of your users are familiar with. It would be great if all my users knew a thing or 2 about Unix or Linux, hell... I'd even settle for one of my users not shrugging when I use the phrase command line interpreter. Oh well...

[MicroBurn]

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will give advance notice of problems to other government agencies and distribute patches to them

Meaning other United States agancies? Or different countries? What about Europe, or Canada? They aren't going to get the patches if they need them like the US gov.?

It's not that I don't agree with the idea, I think they govs. should get the patches first, else there could be a major breach, but what about other countries?

microburn

[omnipotent0689]

I'm sure Microsoft would make patches readily available to any other countries' governments as well assuming that the right people were contacted. Just understand that the US Dept of Homeland Security is being as proactive as possible. The individual consumer can't really complain to Microsoft about lack of availability if their own country adopts a "reactive" vice "proactive" stance on information security.

Not cracking on your Canadian location, so much, but they may not view Cyber-Terrorism as a threat to you hosers, eh? <--- Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Cheers!

[Spyrus]

what do you think the odds of one of these gov employees digging into these patches and releasing some strain of virus/exploit based on it? I mean government or not every place of employment has employees who do things they shouldnt and have employees who are disgruntled or just plain unhappy. What are the odds of something else coming from this?

[ZT3000]

Is a simple patch given ahead of time going to cause people to suddenly get clues on how to crash/bash systems? Geez, they have an entire operating system and patches at their disposal now. If they are so smart, let em crash the machines that haven't patched already.

I don't see individual departments, let alone any department of the US Government saying to foreign Governments "Oh..you have that problem too?? ...well gee....here's an itsy bitsy teenie weenie little patch to fix that right up now...It's an advanced patch so don't be telling anyone about it, ya hear??

I think the odds of something bad coming out of this is....well...zero to none.

[Egaladeist]

I agree that it'll make little or no difference...this sounds like an attempt by Billy-bob to earn some governmental brownie-points by suckin' up to the brass...
after all his dealings with governmental agencies he's now laying on a little butter to smooth things over and get a few favors into his pocket before the next time his ass gets into a sling.

[Spyrus]

Originally posted here by ZT3000
.....

I think the odds of something bad coming out of this is....well...zero to none.

I disagree completely. The difference being here is if a new update comes out a month before it is released to the normal public, a skiddie/virus writer gets ahold of it, realizes the potential and releases it..... now only the government pcs that MAY have gotten the update will not be affected, but EVERY other windows based pc is.... not just some of them, a lot of good admins stay on top of patches and security updates testing and implementing them as soon as they can, but you take a month old problem that you dont have a patch for and someone releases a POC or exploits in some way I think you may be looking at another blaster problem but perhaps on a larger scale since noone has the update yet.

Just my 2 cents

[|3lack|ce]

You know, another way of looking at this is -

M$ is getting free beta testing from Uncle Sam...

[nihil]

Hmmm..................

So people who control thermonuclear weapons get software that Micro$h1te dare not release to the commercial market?

Oh great...................