Summary:  Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. This Service pack contains a myraid of security-related features aimed at hardening XP systems in many functional categories, including network firewalling, memory protections, email and browsing vulnerabilities, etc.

Recommended Actions:  Service Pack 2 is a very large and potentially complex upgrade for the XP operating system. It is recommended that XP administrators and support personnel use the resources listed below to help develop their implementation/support/etc strategies.

ITS Actions:  At this time, ITS is researching possible actions with respect to this service pack distribution.

An update will be issued if this situation changes.

Resources:
NOTE: Some long URLs may wrap to the next line.

Media Overviews of Service Pack 2 goals, distribution strategy and key features:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5610539/
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/08/06/microsoft.update.ap/index.html
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0806microwraps.html?nl

Feature-specific Media overviews, etc:

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci999218,00.html
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci998784,00.html
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci998536,00.html

Official (Microsoft) Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) Support Center:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;windowsxpsp2

Release notes for Windows XP Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=835935&product=windowsxpsp2

Highlights and Top Issues for IT Professionals:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;ln;windowsxpsp2it

NOTE:  PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS ALERT.  Alerts distributed by ALARM are not intended to supplant whatever security measures you are currently following. Technology coordinators, as well as the entire Ualbany computing community should continue to take all necessary precautions against threats to system security and information integrity.

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