Vulnerability

Flaw in software which lets attackers in

A vulnerability is a flaw in an application or piece of software which allows a malicious person to carry out unauthorised actions. These actions can range from escalating privileges to executing malicious code on the target system. Most vulnerabilities are the result of errors in programming, such as failing to properly check the behaviour of code when faced with unexpected or unusual circumstances.

A common form of vulnerability is the buffer overflow.

Related news articles

Four critical updates this Patch Tuesday

11 updates to be issued by Microsoft in October's monthly patch release: 4 critical.

14 October 2008

Four critical updates in Patch Tuesday release

Monthly security update small but vital.

10 September 2008

DNS flaw exploitation danger growing

Slow patchers targeted by sophisticated attacks.

01 August 2008

Trend OfficeScan flaws labelled highly critical

Web-delivered products at risk of allowing remote access.

01 August 2008

Patch Tuesday sees serious DNS flaws fixed

Nothing marked critical, but some very important patches issued.

10 July 2008

  see all related news stories

Poll

Will the current banking crisis lead to an increase in phishing attacks?
Yes
No
I don't know

Leave a comment
View 1 comment
Jobs Career Sidebar

VB100 certification

VB100 VB's testing team put 24 anti-malware products to the test on the server version of Microsoft's latest iteration of the Windows platform: Windows Server 2008. John Hawes has all the details on which products managed to secure a VB100 award and which need have a little more work to do.
See full results.
Virus Bulletin currently has 138,801 registered users.