[Free Bird]

If you use Internet Explorer, it is vital that you read this announcement and act upon its contents. If not, it's still in your best interest to read on.

Some weeks ago, a flaw was found in Microsoft's JPEG parser. Now, it appears somebody has created a JPEG virus that can actually infect your computer.

What does this mean?

In the past, opening images was completely harmless from a security point of view, or at least it seemed to be. Not anymore. IE users with unpatched systems can be infected by simply looking at a malicious JPEG image.

So what does MC have to do with this?

Members of MC can put images inside their posts or signature or link to them, even upload them. Avatars are also pictures. We can't deny the possibility that somebody would put up a malicious image, although we hope and believe that none of our users would ever do so. One solution would be to turn off those features, but that would hardly be acceptable. However, this does prompt us to issue a very severe warning:

If you haven't done so already, update your computer!

Windows Update will both update GDI+ and run a small program that determines what other programs on your computer need patching. Install the update, run the program, patch your other programs if necessary and then, if you use Microsoft Office, go to Office Update and install all available patches. Once you've completed these steps, you should be safe. However:

MYSTcommunity and its staff are in no way responsible for the content posted by its members, including malicious images and other malware.

And one more thing, which should speak for itself but is nonetheless very important:

Any user found posting such malicious images on MC, linking to them, or referencing them in any other way will automatically be banned. No exceptions, no excuses.