Update Your Windows Machine (especially XP)

PCWorld.com - Microsoft Issues Critical Patches

Well, Microsoft has released a slurry of new patches, 2 rated critical, and others just rated as important. I don't know quite how they decide to rate these things.

Despite being rated "important," rather than critical, by Microsoft, the MS04-021 hole is of particular concern to security experts at McAfee, according to Vincent Gullotto, vice president of the Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team at McAfee.

Like the vulnerabilities that led to the Blaster and Sasser Internet worms, the IIS 4.0 hole gives malicious hackers total control over vulnerable servers without requiring them to trick users into clicking on a link or visiting a Web page, he said.

The last time MS released a patch like this I believe it was... 9 days until the Sasser worm came out, exploiting the patch. (I can't find a link specifying the time frame, but this mentions the occurrence after the patch) So don't delay, update your computers today. In Internet Explorer, just click on the 'Tools" menu, and select "Windows Update". That will take you straight to their page. Or you can click on the link to the right, in my side bar, that says "UPDATE". That should do it too :)

Remember, having a firewall will pretty much always protect you from these viruses like Sasser or Blaster