Steps have finally been taken by Microsoft to protect millions of exposed networks vulnerable to a .Net exploit that was first discovered nine months ago.

Security-Assessment.com reported close to 90 percent of Web sites upon which the company penetration tested in 2006 had "critical to urgent vulnerabilities"

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday release covered vulnerabilities in Microsoft's .Net Framework, Office Excel, Office Publisher, and three for its Windows operating systems.

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TALLINN - Tensions between Estonia and Russia show no signs of declining any time soon and the latest manifestation of ill-will concerns the spring ‘cyber attacks’ on Estonia which are widely believed to have emanated from Russia in the immediate aftermath of the ‘Bronze Soldier’ controversy.

Earlier this week, the Russian embassy in Tallinn said that it has not witheld assistance with regard to an ongoing Estonian probe in to the attacks, but didn’t help because the authorities’ request was not formulated properly.b

Quoting the impenetrable legalese of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, the embassy said that the existing bilateral legal assistance agreement implies procedural actions prescribed by the laws of both parties and does not envision search actions aimed at establishing the whereabouts of individuals concerning the investigation.

http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/18284/

For many countries, the events of the past weeks have been a loud wake-up call. Estonia, one of the most wired nations in Europe, actually survived pretty well. Other countries would have fared worse, NATO specialists reckon.

The International Telecommunication Union, which unites all 191 countries that use the world telephone system, hopes to take the lead in pushing for a global convention against cybercrime. Alexander Ntoko, its expert on cyberwarfare, says the key issue is anonymity: “We are in an industry where there is no control, no rules, no identities—it's the wild west. But for critical applications you have to know who you are dealing with.” NATO experts agree. At a minimum, any international cybercrime convention is likely to oblige internet service providers to co-operate in blocking DDOS attacks coming from their subscribers' computers.

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