Technical Tidbits™

Those of you who are my PC security (Introduction to PC Security) students don’t have to worry about this because in the first few lessons of the course you’ve disabled this!

However, many of you have not taken the course so I thought it was wise to post this.

Oh, and by the MAC users, this affects you too if you are using the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client to connect a MAC to a windows PC.

According to Microsoft’s Security Bulletin: MS09-044:

This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker successfully convinced a user of Terminal Services to connect to a malicious RDP server or if a user visits a specially crafted Web site that exploits this vulnerability. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

via Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-044 – Critical: Vulnerabilities in Remote Desktop Connection Could Allow Remote Code Execution 970927.

There is also known issues after installing this update, so you may want to check the bulletin for a list of those.

I’ve been teaching the Introduction to PC Security course for over 5 years and from day 1 I’ve had the students disable this service! I wonder what else you’re missing?