Uh oh. It&#x27;s time for the monthly global computer security meltdown. Again, but worse this time. Security vulnerabilities in libpng are a huge deal; they affect lots and lots of different programs, including things people don&#x27;t usually think of, and many them embed their own copies of libpng which makes them hard to update. The last time there was a security vulnerability in libpng, it took <i>years</i> before it was fixed everywhere.<p>Patching this properly will require not just replacing a centralized copy of libpng, but scanning all binaries for statically-linked copies. There might be some tools left over from the last time libpng got into trouble; this would be a very good time to update and link to them. Some categories of software that are at particularly high risk right now:<p>* Web browsers. Sandboxing likely helps, but there&#x27;s a possibility that there are some usages (eg favicons) that decode outside the sandbox.<p>* MMS on Android (possibly remote root on phones with no user interaction)<p>* Any server that accepts PNG uploads and processes them (eg, user avatar thumbnail generation)<p>* Anything which shows people user-provided avatar images (eg, IM clients)<p>* Video games which download levels that can contain images<p>* File browsers which show image previews<p>* Music players which display album covers<p>Expect malicious images to start appearing everywhere, and soon. If you&#x27;re responsible for the computer security anywhere, this is a drop-everything priority.