DHS recommends agencies test Windows SP2

Federal security officials are recommending that all Microsoft Corp. Windows XP users, including agencies, carefully test the company's newest security patch and then deploy it throughout their organizations.

"Government sites running Windows XP should test and strongly consider deploying Service Pack 2" (SP2), said Art Manion, an Internet security analyst for the Homeland Security Department's U.S.-Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT).

SP2, Microsoft's new release, is generally getting good marks as a first attempt to fix many of the security flaws that have bugged the company's operating system during the past few years.

US-CERT officials view the patch as a step in the right direction because it "makes Internet Explorer highly resistant to the types of attacks we've seen recently, such as download.ject, and enables Windows firewalls."

Download.ject is a Trojan horse program that attempts to download and

install a file by exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.

"Do your research, do your testing, do what you need to do