Things that make you go "hmmm..."

This is an advance notification of an out-of-band security bulletin that Microsoft is intending to release on October 23, 2008.

This bulletin advance notification will be replaced with the revised October bulletin summary on October 23, 2008. The revised bulletin summary will include the out-of-band security bulletin as well as the security bulletins already released on October 14, 2008.

Microsoft is hosting a webcast to address customer questions on this out-of-band security bulletin on October 23, 2008, at 1:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada). Register now for the Out-of-Band Security Bulletin Webcast. After this date, this webcast is available on-demand. For more information, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Summaries and Webcasts.

See here for more details:

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Server service. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. On Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 systems, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability without authentication to run arbitrary code. It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect network resources from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and rated Important for all supported editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting the way that the Server service handles RPC requests. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

Recommendation. Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately.