This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Jared Richardson. Original Post: Windows exploit fix Feed Title: Jared's Weblog Feed URL: http://www.jaredrichardson.net/blog/index.rss Feed Description: Jared's weblog. The web site was created after the launch of the book "Ship It!" and discusses issues from Continuous Integration to web hosting providers. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Jared Richardson Latest Posts From Jared's Weblog

Not everyone has heard about the Windows exploit making the rounds. To summarize, if you view a web page with one of these images, you can be infected.

Yes, it's that bad. And the infection means a remote hacker can take over your machine. Apparently rootkits have been installed with this method via advertising banner images. So even a trusted site that serves up banner ads from another site can infect your box.

Here's the quick fix:

1. Click on the Start button
2. Click on Run...
3. Type regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll
4. Click OK

This disables the DLL that's being exploited. You lose the ability to see thumbnail previews on your system until you reload the DLL. To reload the DLL, just type:

regsvr32 shimgvw.dll

This exploit is a bad one. I'd suggest you "patch" your boxes this way until Microsoft has a fix released.

Jared