Microsoft confirms the 'F1' key as potentially deadly

Look at it up there, in the top left corner, just above your middle finger, all innocuous-looking... just gagging to be depressed... you could just give F1 a little tickle, no one would know... STOP! Don't do it! At least, not if you're on Windows 2000, XP or Server 2003. A few days ago a warning appeared on Microsoft's Security Response Center, in it they detailed an attack involving pop-up boxes and the F1 key. There's now a full Security Advisory on the issue, and if you're running one of the affected operating systems you should read it.

In essence: if you hit F1 in response to a pop-up dialog, an attacker could execute arbitrary code (i.e. hack you). All it takes is some cleverly-crafted VBScript -- but Microsoft says it's not aware of any such attacks currently in the wild.

Read more: DownloadSquad

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