What’s Microsoft’s response to the availability of third party patches for the WMF vulnerability?
Microsoft recommends that customers download and deploy the security update for the WMF vulnerability that we are targeting for release on January 10, 2006. As a general rule, it is a best practice to utilize security updates for software vulnerabilities from the original vendor of the software. With Microsoft software, Microsoft carefully reviews and tests security updates to ensure that they are of high quality and have been evaluated thoroughly for application compatibility. In addition, Microsoft’s security updates are offered in 23 languages for all affected versions of the software simultaneously. Microsoft cannot provide similar assurance for independent third party security updates.
