Windows XP Help attacks on the rise
Update: Microsoft has patched the issue and it is no longer a problem provided that Windows users have patched their system with the most recent security updates provided by the company.
An unpatched bug in the Windows XP Help and Support system is being increasingly used in attacks by virus and malware writers reports the BBC.
Microsoft reported it's seen more than 10,000 PCs hit by the attack so far and that it has not been able to find a fix for the problem.
A successful exploit of the issue gives hackers complete control over the PC. It initially came to light when a Google Engineer discovered it was possible to exploit Windows XP's ability to send and receive remote help from another computer.
Microsoft said it only saw "innocuous" attacks by a few researchers first but discovered later on that hi-tech criminals are exploiting it as well.
Writing on the Microsoft Security Centre blog, Holly Stewart said it had started seeing "seemingly-automated, randomly-generated" web pages that host the exploit.
A senior security researcher at Trend Micro, Rik Ferguson, said  "It's certainly very serious and is now being actively exploited by what appears to be several different groups as you can see form the multiple payloads being delivered." and Carole Thierault, senior security consultant as security firm Sophos described the attacks as a "nightmare".
Microsoft is still working on a fix for the problem but Engadget have reported that...
Microsoft says the only current work around to the issue is to Unregister the HCP Protocol which disables hcp:// style links
The vulnerability does not affect Windows Vista or Windows 7. Users should avoid clicking on links that begin with hcp as that is the requirement for an successful attack on the user system.
Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 users can read the following guide to find out how to protect their system from the attack: Windows XP And Windows Server 2003 Zero-Day Vulnerability
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Are these articles AI generated?
Now the duplicates are more obvious.
This is below AI generated crap. It is copy of Microsoft Help website article without any relevant supporting text. Anyway you can find this information on many pages.
Yes, but why post the exact same article under a different title twice on the same day (19 march 2023), by two different writers?
1.) Excel Keyboard Shortcuts by Trevor Monteiro.
2.) 70+ Excel Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows by Priyanka Monteiro
Why oh why?
Yeah. Tell me more about “Priyanka Monteiro”. I’m dying to know. Indian-Portuguese bot ?
Probably they will announce that the taskbar will be placed at top, right or left, at your will.
Special event by they is a special crap for us.
If it’s Microsoft, don’t buy it.
Better brands at better prices elsewhere.
All new articles have zero count comments. :S
WTF? So, If I add one photo to 5 albums, will it count 5x on my storage?
It does not make any sense… on google photos, we can add photo to multiple albums, and it does not generate any additional space usage
I have O365 until end of this year, mostly for onedrive and probably will jump into google one
Photo storage must be kept free because customers chose gadgets just for photos and photos only.
What a nonsense. Does it mean that albums are de facto folders with copies of our pictures?
Sounds exactly like the poor coding Microsoft is known for in non-critical areas i.e. non Windows Core/Office Core.
I imagine a manager gave an employee the task to create the album feature with hardly any time so they just copied the folder feature with some cosmetic changes.
And now that they discovered what poor management results in do they go back and do the album feature properly?
Nope, just charge the customer twice.
Sounds like a go-getter that needs to be promoted for increasing sales and managing underlings “efficiently”, said the next layer of middle management.
When will those comments get fixed? Was every editor here replaced by AI and no one even works on this site?
Instead of a software company, Microsoft is now a fraud company.
For me this is proof that Microsoft has a back-door option into all accounts in their cloud.
quote “…… as the MSA key allowed the hacker group access to virtually any cloud account at Microsoft…..”
unquote
so this MSA key which is available to MS officers can give access to all accounts in MS cloud.This is the backdoor that MS has into the cloud accounts. Lucky I never got any relevant files of mine in their (MS) cloud.
>”Now You: what is your theory?”
That someone handed an employee a briefcase full of cash and the employee allowed them access to all their accounts and systems.
Anything that requires 5-10 different coincidences to happen is highly unlikely. Occam’s razor.
Good reason to never login to your precious machine with a Microsoft a/c a.k.a. as the cloud.
The GAFAM are always very careless about our software automatically sending to them telemetry and crash dumps in our backs. It’s a reminder not to send them anything when it’s possible to opt out, and not to opt in, considering what they may contain. And there is irony in this carelessness biting them back, even if in that case they show that they are much more cautious when it’s their own data that is at stake.