A strange phenomenon has been occurring, which quite frankly has me puzzled. I have noticed that since the beginning of the summer, accesses to this site have gone up at a tremendous rate -- in fact, the rate of increase is cause for concern. At the same time, I haven't put a whole lot of new content on the site recently, so what is happening, and what do I intend to do about it?

This morning, I added a new theme to the site. The theme is named 0ri0n (with the number zero, not the letter between "n" and "p"), and it is a black background with red borders and white/light gray lettering.

This one seems to be easier on my old, tired eyes than some of the others -- so if you are having any difficulties reading the content, or if you just want to try a new theme, click on over to the section of the site and give it a try!

-etee

Yesterday, Microsoft released their August patches. You can read the bulletins and download the patches manually (if you don't use Windows Update or Microsoft Update) from the following location: Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for August, 2005 An excellent write-up on these bulletins can be found at SANS Internet Storm Center: Handler's Diary August 9th 2005.

Pay close attention to MS8 (MS IE Cumulative Update) and MS1 (Remote Desktop Protocol vulnerability), as proof of concept (exploit) code for both of these has already been published.

Well, it is semi-official. Microsoft has sent out their heads-up on next weeks crop of security patches. According to their bulletin:

On 9 August 2005 Microsoft is planning to release:

Security Updates

• 6 Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Windows. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. These updates will require a restart. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA).

The full text of the announcement can be found right here.

So, folks, if you don't have Windows Update set for "automatic", remember to put on those patches next week!