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17-Year-Old Hole Found

It took nearly two decades, but a vulnerability in the Windows kernel that affects nearly all versions has been found.

While it took 17 years to uncover, it also took Microsoft over six months to issue an alert once the vulnerability was known. Fortunately, this elevation-of-privilege vulnerability requires the hacker to have network credentials and local access.

The hole, which is in all 32-bit versions of Windows from NT to present day, should be fixed next month.

Posted by Doug Barney on January 22, 2010


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