Microsoft may face tough patch job with Windows shortcut bug

Microsoft may have a tough time fixing the Windows shortcut vulnerability, a security researcher said today. A noted vulnerability expert, however, disagreed, and said Microsoft could deliver a patch within two weeks.

"The way Windows' shortcuts are designed is flawed, and I think they will have a very hard time patching this," said Roel Schouwenberg, an antivirus researcher with Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab.

Schouwenberg based his prediction that a patch may prove elusive on the fact that Microsoft has never faced a security issue with shortcuts, and thus has no security processes in place that it can quickly tweak.