Attention everyone sitting inside a Starbucks/Library/Gas Station/Motel Lobby/Airport…If you’re on Wi-Fi, you’re taking a much bigger risk than before, and your data might not be as safe as you once believed.

You heard me right, but before you get all up in a panic, chill out and let me explain a few things first.   According to the article I just read, this new security risk was highlighted quite effectively at the Black Hat hacker conference.  Basically, the attacks use cookies, which are generally less protected, and that, in turn,  “gives attackers access to mail messages or the page someone maintains on sites such as MySpace or Facebook.  While this sounds terrible, which it is, there IS some good news.

The good news is, webmail clients like GMail let you, if you so desire, encrypt your data that is sent back and forth, thereby rendering a cookie theft (man that feels funny saying that) useless.   More good news is that really great hackers are onto this, and have now alerted makers of various computer software programs of the vulnerability.  Hopefully, with enough warning some major attack, or new style of data-theft can be successfully thwarted.

Cross your fingers, and keep those passwords fresh friends!

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From the response we’ve had from Microsoft Vista users, it’s clear that there’s a lot of PC readers here. To that audience, we’d like to make sure you’re aware of a ‘Critical’ security update released by Microsoft yesterday.

As part of their regularly scheduled software update, they bundled 6 patched. 3 of them are rated ‘Critical’ by Microsoft - meaning you really should make sure they are installed on your system where applicable.

Of the 3, the one getting most of the noise is an Excel patch that targets a vulnerability in the company’s spreadsheet program that could let hackers break into a PC if its user opened a tainted spreadsheet.

It’s important you contact your System Administrator if you are in a supported situation or follow the instructions if you’re solo to make sure you’re protected by this patch.

Also packaged in this bundle:

• Microsoft also addressed holes in its .NET Framework, the library of computer code that is part of Windows Vista and versions of Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.
• Microsoft addressed a security vulnerability in Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003.

While you’re at the site, remember you can sign up to have these periodic updates automatically pushed to your system - which is the easiest and smartest approach.

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