Microsoft Support & Discussions

If you have your Mac connected to different audio input and output sources, having to switch between them can be a process: You have to open up System Preferences, click on the Sound preference, and toggle the Input and Output tabs to find the right source. Or do you? Here's a much faster way to do it. The Mac is well-designed for audio media management. Whether you're just listening to music and podcasts, or whether you're a professional musician, the Mac has abilities (and complicated software tools and workflows) to suit you. So it's easy to get your Mac set up with audio inputs ranging from USB interfaces to the digital audio input, output including Bluetooth …

Plants vs. Zombies 2 has today received an update, introducing 16 exciting new levels for players to enjoy. Titled Frostbite Caves Part 1, EA has brought freezing winds and hot new plants – a perfect recipe for melting frigid zombies. Here's a quick run through of what's new in the latest release: 4 fiery plants, like Pepper-pult 8 primitive zombies, including Dodo Rider Zombie Hug-a-thon celebrating Valenbrainz (February 3 – 14) The Sap-fling Reforestation Bundle This update marks the beginning of a chilled adventure for the title, which is set to receive more content after Part 1. Free – Download Now Continue reading...

Apple, along with several other tech companies, has reached a settlement deal today in a class action suit concerning anti-poaching policies that may have suppressed wages among tech workers in Silicon Valley. While it's unclear what the terms of the settlement are, the judge in the case had already rejected quite a large sum in a previous settlement proposal. From Reuters: Workers accused the firms of conspiring to avoid poaching each other's employees. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, last year rejected a $324.5 million settlement of the lawsuit as too low after one of the named plaintiffs objected. The suit has been going on for a w…

Fans of the Mac mini may have been a tad disappointed with last year's refresh, but it looks like Apple is looking to rectify that. According to a new report, the company has added the option to purchase a 2TB configuration of the 2.8GHz version of the mini. The new option was spotted by 9to5Mac, and appears to have popped up sometime over the holidays: According to our digging into web archives, the 2TB option returned for the priciest Mac mini model in mid-December, right around the Christmas holidays. The 2TB Fusion Drive upgrade costs a $100 more than the 1TB drive, and it requires the machine to be built-to-order. This is definitely good news for thos…

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (January 13, 2015): Bulletin published Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow denial of service on an Internet Authentication Service (IAS) or Network Policy Server (NPS) if an attacker sends specially crafted username strings to the IAS or NPS. Note that the denial of service vulnerability would not allow an attacker to execute code or to elevate user rights; however, it could prevent RADIUS authentication on the IAS or NPS. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (January 13, 2015): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves one privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker runs a specially crafted application on an affected system. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit the vulnerability. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Critical Revision Note: V2.0 (January 13, 2015): To address issues with Security Update 3008923, Microsoft re-released MS14-080 to comprehensively address CVE-2014-6363. In addition to installing update 3008923, customers running Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, or Window RT should also install update 3029449, which has been added with this rerelease. Customers who have already successfully installed the 3008923 update, which has not changed since its original release, do not need to reinstall it. See Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 3008923 for more information. Summary: This security update resolves fourteen privately reported v…

Severity Rating: Critical Revision Note: V1.0 (January 13, 2015): V1.0 (January 13, 2015): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an attacker sends specially crafted packets to an affected Windows server. Only customers who enable this service are vulnerable. By default, Telnet is installed but not enabled on Windows Server 2003. Telnet is not installed by default on Windows Vista and later operating systems. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (January 13, 2015): V1.0 (January 13, 2015): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker logs on to the system and runs a specially crafted application. A local attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code on a target system with elevated privileges. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit the vulnerability. Continue reading...

Today, as part of Update Tuesday, we released eight security updates – one rated Critical and seven rated Important in severity, to address eight unique Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) in Microsoft Windows. We encourage you to apply all of these updates. For more information about this month’s security updates, including the detailed view of the Exploit Index (XI) broken down by each CVE, visit the Microsoft Bulletin Summary webpage. If you are not familiar with how we calculate XI, a full description can be found here. We re-released one Security Bulletin: MS14-080 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer One Security Advisory was revis…

For years our customers have been in the trenches against cyberattacks in an increasingly complex digital landscape. We’ve been there with you, as have others. And we aren’t going anywhere. Forces often seek to undermine and disrupt technology and people, attempting to weaken the very devices and services people have come to depend on and trust. Just as malicious acts are planned, so too are counter-measures implemented by companies like Microsoft. These efforts aim to protect everyone against a broad spectrum of activity ranging from phishing scams that focus on socially engineered trickery, to sophisticated attacks by persistent and determined adversaries. (And yes, pe…

Our Advance Notification Service (ANS) was created more than a decade ago as part of Update Tuesday to broadly communicate in advance, about the security updates being released for Microsoft products and services each month. Over the years, technology environments and customer needs have evolved, prompting us to evaluate our existing information and distribution channels. This desire to improve is why customers may have seen us introduce myBulletins to provide bulletin reports tailored to customer preferences, discontinue the Deployment Priority matrix in favor of the Exploitability Index, modify the Exploitability Index to account for more threat scenarios, simplify secu…

Today, as part of Update Tuesday, we released seven security updates – three rated Critical and four rated Important in severity, to address 24 unique Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Office and Exchange. We encourage you to apply all of these updates. For more information about this month’s security updates, including the detailed view of the Exploit Index (XI) broken down by each CVE, visit the Microsoft Bulletin Summary webpage. If you are not familiar with how we calculate XI, a full description can be found here. We re-released two Security Bulletins: MS14-065 Cumulative Security Update for Internet…

Today, we provide advance notification for the release of seven Security Bulletins. Three of these updates are rated Critical and four are rated as Important in severity. These updates are for Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Office and Exchange. As per our monthly process, we’ve scheduled the Security Bulletin release for the second Tuesday of the month, December 9, 2014, at approximately 10 a.m. PDT. Until then, please review the ANS summary page for more information to help you prepare for Security Bulletin testing and deployment. Follow us on Twitter at @MSFTSecResponse Tracey Pretorius, Director Response Communications Continue reading…

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (January 13, 2015): V1.0 (January 13, 2015): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker logs on to a system and runs a specially crafted application. An authenticated attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could bypass existing permission checks that are performed during cache modification in the Microsoft Windows Application Compatibility component and execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (January 13, 2015): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Error Reporting (WER). The vulnerability could allow security feature bypass if successfully exploited by an attacker. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain access to the memory of a running process. 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. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (January 13, 2015): V1.0 (January 13, 2015): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker convinces a user to run a specially crafted application. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Customers whose accounts are configured to have fewe…

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (January 13, 2015): V1.0 (January 13, 2015): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow security feature bypass by unintentionally relaxing the firewall policy and/or configuration of certain services when an attacker on the same network as the victim spoofs responses to DNS and LDAP traffic initiated by the victim. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Critical Revision Note: V1.1 (December 19, 2014): Revised bulletin to change the Known Issues entry in the Knowledge Base Article section from "None" to "Yes". Corrected mitigations and workarounds for the Internet Explorer Resource Information Disclosure Vulnerability (CVE-2013-7331). Summary: This security update resolves one publicly disclosed and thirty-six privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted webpage using Internet Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as …

Severity Rating: Critical Revision Note: V1.2 (December 19, 2014): Corrected the severity table and vulnerability information to add CVE-2014-6354 as a vulnerability addressed by this update. This is an informational change only. Customers who have already successfully installed the update do not have to take any action. Summary: This security update resolves one publicly disclosed and twenty-five privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted webpage using Internet Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could gain the …

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.1 (December 19, 2014): Bulletin revised to include Windows 2012 Server Core installation and Windows 2012 R2 Server Core installation as affected software. Summary: This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Internet Microsoft Information Services (IIS) that could lead to a bypass of the "IP and domain restrictions" security feature. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could result in clients from restricted or blocked domains having access to restricted web resources. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V1.0 (December 19, 2014): Bulletin published. Summary: This security update resolves one privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Office. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a specially crafted file is opened in an affected edition of Microsoft Office. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. Customers whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate with administrative user rights. Continue reading...

Severity Rating: Important Revision Note: V3.0 (December 12, 2014): Rereleased bulletin to announce the reoffering of Microsoft security update 2986475 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3. The rereleased update addresses a known issue in the original offering. Customers who uninstalled the original update should install the updated version of 2986475 at the earliest opportunity. Summary: This security update resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow elevation of privilege if a user clicks a specially crafted URL that takes them to a targeted Outlook Web App site. An a…

Severity Rating: Critical Revision Note: V1.1 (December 10, 2014): Bulletin revised to correct update replacement entries for Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5/4.5.1/4.5.2 (update 2972107) Summary: This security update resolves three privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft .NET Framework. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker sends a specially crafted URI request containing international characters to a .NET web application, causing ASP.NET to generate incorrectly constructed URIs. In .NET 4.0 applications, the vulnerable functionality (iriParsing) is disabled by default; for the vulnerability to be exploitable an app…

Today, we released an out-of-band security update to address a vulnerability in Kerberos which could allow Elevation of Privilege. This update is for all supported versions of Windows Server and includes a defense-in-depth update for all supported versions of Windows. We strongly encourage customers to apply this update as soon as possible by following the directions in Security Bulletin MS14-068. Tracey Pretorius, Director Response Communications Continue reading...