Today's mailbox had
five identical messages from
dot_net_msgr_svc@msgr.hotmail.com titled "Important Security Update
for the .NET Messenger Service". Apparently I have to upgrade MSN
Messenger and Windows Messenger because of some security fooferall. I
almost assumed this was some scam, but the
upgrade site
looks real.
Let's enumerate the problems:
- I don't use MSN Messenger, I use Trillian.
- WinXP forces me to have MSN Messenger installed whether I want it
or not. Did Microsoft compromise my security when they forced their IM
system onto my machine?
- I got 5 different emails to the same address.
- The email came from hotmail.com, not microsoft.com.
- The email is titled "Important", thereby almost guaranteeing
people will ignore it.
- The email is sent as HTML but then the contents are just wrapped in a <pre> tag.
- Why not just use Windows Update?
I'm glad Microsoft is taking security more seriously, but they're
going to need to work on their notifications.