Microsoft issues security patch for unreleased software

Updated October 28 to correct that security patch was released last week and security advisory was released on Monday.

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft has released a security patch for software that won't be available publicly until Tuesday at the company's Professional Developer Conference.

Microsoft will be providing attendees of PDC 2008 on Tuesday with a pre-beta version of Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista.

"A security issue has been identified that could allow an authenticated remote attacker to compromise your Microsoft Windows-based system and gain control over it," the security update says.

The more than 6,000 attendees who will be walking away from the sold-out event with the Windows 7 operating system software in hand could have been vulnerable to an attacker exploiting the security hole.

"The code that will be distributed at PDC for Windows 7 was put on CD before last week's security update was developed, so it will not contain the update," a Microsoft spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail request for comment. "However, when users install the pre-beta bits, they will be prompted to get the update from Windows Update, just like other Windows customers."

The security patch has been available since Wednesday. The critical security hole also affects Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Part of the install process is checking for updates, so this would have been a moot point regardless. If the system was connected to the internet, it would get patched. If it wasn't connected, then it wouldn't be vulnerable in any case.

Considering the hard drives that the PDC attendees will be given were imaged long before this came to light, this is a pretty good indicator that MSFT is dliigent in addressing security issues as soon as they can.

[jaclimer]

This patch was released for Vista and XP as well. It makes sense that they would include Win7 this late in the game--instead of putting off the beta release.

This post almost reads as if Win7 is buggy and that MS is already releasing patches even before it has been released in beta. I think it would be more accurate to say that a patch has been released to fix a vulnerability in XP, Vista and even Win7 beta.