Worm Spreading In Many Ways Becoming An Epidemic

[Peaches]

January 15, 2009 2:03 PM PST

Expert: Worm spreading in many ways becoming an epidemic

Posted by Elinor Mills A worm that spreads via removable devices, network shares, and weak administrator passwords--in addition to exploiting a critical Windows vulnerability--is spreading so fast it is becoming an epidemic, a security researcher said on Thursday.

The worm, known as Kido, Conficker, or Downadup, initially exploited MS08-067, a vulnerability considered critical for Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003. It was patched in October.

Newer variants have been configured to give the worm the ability to infect via other means to get onto the network, said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior research engineer at Kaspersky Lab.

"The Kido authors are trying to get into these networks by infected removable devices and by using other Trojans to install Kido on a computer, which will then try to infect other machines on the local network," he said in an e-mail statement. The worm "is currently causing an epidemic."

An estimated 3.5 million computers are believed to be infected with the worm, ZDNet reports.

story here: http://news.cnet.com/security/

[Peaches]

One-Third of Windows PCs Susceptible to Worm

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Thursday, January 15, 2009 1:35 PM PST The worm that has infected several million Windows PCs is causing havoc because nearly a third of all systems remain unpatched 80 days after Microsoft rolled out an emergency fix, a security expert said Thursday.

Based on scans of several hundred thousand customer-owned Windows PCs, Qualys Inc. .concluded that about 30% of the machines have not yet been patched with the "out of cycle" fix Microsoft provided Oct. 23 as security update MS08-067.

"The unpatched numbers went down significantly around the 30-day mark," said Wolfgang Kandek , Qualys' chief technology officer, "when less than 50% were unpatched. After that, it went down a little slower. As of yesterday, 30% of the machines are unpatched."

With nearly a third of all Windows systems still vulnerable, it's no surprise that the "Downadup" worm has been able to score such a success, Kandek said. "These slow [corporate] patch cycles are simply not acceptable," he said. "They lead directly to these high infection rates."

Story: PC World - http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/arti...le_to_worm.html

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