back to article Politically motivated exploits target activists on Google

Politically motivated attackers are exploiting an unpatched flaw in all supported versions of Microsoft Windows to carry out highly targeted attacks against activists using Google, the company's security team warned. The unidentified attackers are wielding a serious vulnerability in the way Windows parses webpages containing …

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  1. ratfox
    Joke

    Politically motivated?

    Can anybody guess who the

    Hackers are working for?

    I wonder what could be the

    Nation that would do such

    A thing... Heh.

    1. Elmer Phud
      Big Brother

      Time we had a decent conspiracy theory . . .

      . . .it's the USA and China working together.

      Neither seem to be really keen on democracy.

    2. GrumpyOldBloke

      I wonder

      Dont believe everything you read in the press and single out one nation. Leaders and public servants the world over, including many in the West, are becoming terrified of their populations or are moving to totalitarian control to cover the crimes of their cronies in arms or finance.

      1. Jimbo 6
        Big Brother

        *Politically* motivated ?

        It's probably the Met's "domestic extremism" unit, searching Farcebook for hippy girls to (ahem) 'poke'

  2. Ed Deckard

    Meanwhile,

    I wonder what would be the nation that wouldn't do such a thing.

  3. Flybert
    Thumb Down

    seems the easier workaround is ...

    not using Internet Explorer .. though the MS advisory doesn't make that clear _as_if_every_windows_user_ uses IE for a browser !

  4. jibberjabber

    Cart before the horse

    "The unidentified attackers are wielding a serious vulnerability in the way Windows parses webpages containing MIME-formatted content. "

    Windows, or IE?

    Even if this is a vulnerability in a supporting service or library, I doubt this would affect Chrome/Firefox users.

  5. Paul Crawford Silver badge
    Linux

    Friends don't let friends use IE

    "In January, Microsoft issued a temporary fix for the flaw...hasn't said when the MHTML bug will be patched."

    Which is a big problem. Worse when it is knowingly exploited and technically naive IE users are relying on Google to shield them (as no patch from MS applied automatically).

    Mind you, Apple is similarly piss-poor in patching Safari so really we come back to educating users to use Firefox, Opera and/or Chrome. Assuming they want some semblance of security on the Internet...

    Tux, because he suffers not from IE or Safari.

  6. Will 28

    So it's not a windows bug it's an IE bug

    or have I missed something?

    1. Tom 13
      Coat

      @Will 28: Well according to Gatesand Company

      IE is a necessary component of Windows, so according to that dictum, technically it is a Windows bug.

  7. Spanners Silver badge
    Grenade

    @ratfox

    It is much easier to list the countries that are probably not the culprit.

    I list the following that I believe would/could not do this

    The Faroes

    Pitcairn

    That's it...

    I could be wrong there though. They might have.

  8. Homer 1

    I'll say "US Gov. vs. Wikileaks for a dollar"

    Did I win?

    Can anyone provide more specific citations, a victim's blog post, anything?

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