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Just hours after Microsoft posted details of a critical Windows bug, new attack code that exploits the flaw has surfaced. It took developers of the Immunity security testing tool two hours to write their exploit, after Microsoft released a patch for the issue Thursday morning. Software developed by Immunity is made available only to paying customers, which means that not everyone has access to the new attack, but security experts expect that some version of the code will begin circulating in public very soon. Microsoft took the unusual step of rushing out an emergency patch for the flaw Thursday, two weeks after noticing a small number of targeted attacks that exploited the bug.
Amazon Web Services Thursday launched a public beta of its cloud-computing service running Windows Server and SQL Server, marking the first time developers and businesses can use the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud to build and host applications on Microsoft’s software. AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, also said Thursday that EC2 has emerged from beta and now can offer SLAs to customers. The SLA guarantees 99.95 percent availability within a geographic region over a 365-day period, or customers are eligible to receive service credits back.
SAP’s venture capital arm has sunk an undisclosed sum of money into LinkedIn, the business-oriented social-networking site. While there are obvious parallels between the two companies, particularly the current and potential new SAP customers among LinkedIn’s reported 30 million-plus members, it’s too soon to know exactly what SAP has in mind. SAP’s stake is part of a US$22.7 million pot raised by LinkedIn. Other investors in the funding round include McGraw-Hill and Goldman Sachs.
Google has finally solved a problem that kept recent subscribers to its Apps suite from accessing their new Gmail accounts. The problem struck on Friday evening, causing a delay in activating the Gmail service for end-users in newly created Apps accounts. Google acknowledged the problem on Monday and later said it would have the issue resolved by Tuesday at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. By Tuesday afternoon, Google had started fixing affected domains, but the work wasn’t completed until more than a day later, at around 9 p.m. on Wednesday.
…And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I’m Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.