The MSBlaster Worm “mushroomed into a full-blown Internet attack Tuesday, affecting as many as 1.4 million computers worldwide, according to a leading government Internet security center,” report Aaron Davis and Kristi Heim for The Mercury News. “[MSBlaster] left a wide swath of bewildered computer users in its path, crippling some companies and government agencies — like the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles, which was forced to close its doors at noon. The worm could still deliver a punch Saturday, when it’s programmed to harness the power of all infected computers and direct them to simultaneously attack the very Microsoft Web site used to distribute software patches to prevent Internet attacks.”
“…computer users were just beginning Tuesday to face the daunting cleanup from MSBlaster, a messy process that could take weeks and cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity, experts said,” Davis and Heim report.
“The worm created a nightmare earlier Tuesday for many home users trying to fix their systems. The instructions for cleaning the worm from infected computers span several pages; and, for those who could locate the patch, the worm caused their computers to restart every few minutes, keeping them from staying connected to the Internet long enough to complete the fix,” Davis and Heim report.
“Anti-virus software maker Symantec in Cupertino estimated that 167,000 machines had been infected with the worm Tuesday. Many were home users, according to security experts, because the worm seemed to target Windows XP the most, which is used commonly on personal computers… now that the script for the worm is out in public, other hackers could add variations to it in coming days to make it spread faster and further,” Davis and Heim report.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Macintosh computers are unaffected by the MSBlaster worm. Think of all the Macs you could’ve bought with “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Perhaps the hardest hit, undoubtedly those wedded firmly to homogenous Microsoft Windows networks, will wake up and realize that diversity of platforms is the best course to chart for the future.
What’s a “patch?” Never heard of one.
thats kind of funny
What a waste.
At least MS has time to change their servers by Saturday in self defense, right?
This virus is no worse than many that have come before it, yet do to licensing deals MS is still the dominant OS.
Until computer manufacturers make the decision break from MS, the populace at large will stick with Windows, no matter how bad it is.
1)I wonder if anyone has figured in all of the man-hours and lost productive time to a large enterprise over the lifespan of an installed computer system running Windoze compared to running a comparable UNIX/LINUX server/Mac OS X desktop system.
2)I wonder if anyone has figured up the average annual business lost throughout the US economy due to slowdowns/stoppages due to Micro$oftopoly’s insecure bloatware.
3)I wonder how much cumulative bandwidth is wasted each year by the endless downloading of patches/virus defs/etc associated with Micro$oftopoly’s Desktop/Server software.
4)I wonder how much money is WASTED each year by government, business and academia each year dealing with all of this.
5)I wonder when some responsible and informed mainstream journalist is going figure all of this out.
A patch is a segment of code that is added to cover a deficiency or “hole” in a piece of software. It is an accepted practice for use in response to software bugs or security vulnerabilities. But I have always considered the need for a large number of patches to be indicative of sloppy programming and insufficient quality control.
Actually, instead of blaming Microsoft, why not blame those who did not heed the warnings we have been receiving since mid-July. This vulnerability was known and it was only a matter of time until it was exploited.
umm . . . If M$ code was better written, there wouldn’t be a need for any warning to heed . . . .
<“Actually, instead of blaming Microsoft, why not blame those who did not heed the warnings we have been receiving since mid-July. This vulnerability was known and it was only a matter of time until it was exploited.”>
Because a lot of the people affected were home users and not businesses. Most typical everyday people have better things to do than to keep up with every single virus alert and Windows patch that’s issued. They buy a computer expecting the thing to work and be at least halfway secure. They don’t have to deal typically with these sorts of issues with their cars, appliances and other household items, so why should they have to with their computers? There are plenty of other things in life that take a much higher priority than having to worry all the time about things like that. That’s why Microsoft deserves plenty (although not entirely all) of the blame in this.
“That’s why Microsoft deserves plenty (although not entirely all) of the blame in this.”
The pathetic thing is…When these idiots need a new computer, they will walk right back into CompUSA in their Zombie-like trance and plop down another 2 grand for a new WINTEL.
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Must suck to be so fricking stupid!
“The pathetic thing is…When these idiots need a new computer, they will walk right back into CompUSA in their Zombie-like trance and plop down another 2 grand for a new WINTEL.
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I agree entirely, but the truth is that a lot of people out there simply don’t realize that there is an alternative. You can call it stupidity or whatever, but it might also help if CompUSA didn’t hide the Macs in the back corner of every freaking store they have! It wouldn’t hurt either if the mainstream media actually reported the truth about these things occassionally too.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate here, but Macs too have patches. They’re not called patches per se, but that last Security Update from Apple was a patch to fix the screensaver bug (where if you held down a key on a password-protected screensaver for 5 minutes, you could crash the screensaver and gain access to the desktop).
But yes, Macs have nowhere near as many an Windows, and the patches usually don’t have to cover such GAPING security holes!!!
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Nobody should think that OS X or any other OS is completely hack-proof. However, I think it’s obvious that OS X is light years ahead of the swiss cheese security of Windows. There is a big difference between a screen saver bug that requires a person to be standing there with access to your keyboard and a worm that easily and invisibly infitrates your system from the internet.
The other thing I find amusing is the typical Wintel pundits pointing their arrogant fingers at the user saying that it’s THEIR FAULT for not patching their system! LOL! Now that is Wintel idiocy at its finest.
I liked this quote from a CNN article about the worm:
“But to expect home users to keep their systems current is unreasonable, said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer with Counterpane Internet Security. He blames software developers for writing bad software that constantly needs “critical” patches.
“My mother will never install the patch until I come visit,” he said. “I couldn’t even call her and walk her through it. The industry is wrong to expect her to do it. The fact that she sends me e-mail is incredible enough.”
LOL! Maybe if the Mac bashing trolls that spend so much time around here would put half that much effort into bugging MS to FIX Windows, they might actually get an OS that half way approaches the BLISSFUL BS version of a Windows reality they try and shovel towards us almost daily in this forum.
This is just what IT people love, and the main reason why they push company to use WIntel.
They just come to company with fake sad face, while in their heart they jump in joy for the job of cleaning the mess, and the dollar they’ll get from this cleaning project.
I am curious if anyone has any insight into how Microsoft itself is affected by these exploitations of its own software. This sort of thing has to have SOME sort of impact on Microsoft internally…
I read an article today in which someone complained that Microsoft wasn’t putting enough resources forth to deal with this problem. The first thought that came to mind was that they were obviously too busy trying to protect the 47,000,000,000 Wintel machines they themselves use to put this piece of dung of an OS out in the first place!
When Bill Gates issued his edict to Microsoft employees that they halt any and all development and focus on security, I imagine they took that to mean they should find ways to protect their Wintel machines from viruses like these instead of actually fixing Windows to rid it of these egregious (in)security holes!
“MacDailyNews’ Take” ponders how many Macs could be bought with hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m pondering how many Macs could be bought with the tens of billions of dollars in Microsoft’s bank account that could have been used to hire some competent programmers to write a secure operating system…
Anyhow, as an IT manager in an all-Mac shop, I’m taking petty delight in this situation, and I’m quietly hoping it is hurting Microsoft the hardest of any company affected. Lord knows, after all the crap they’ve thrown at us, the customers, they certainly have had this coming for quite some time.
Ok.
Here it is.
The difinitive name for you know who:
Micros**t
Why did this have to happen now, when Apple are running down inventory for new product announcements? It would be so easy to get a few more switchers this weekend.
Here’s the problem: everyone focuses on Microsoft being bad people and worse programmers. Forget that crap while you read the rest of this. Windows XP is a very complex and powerful program with capabilities that far exceed any other os, including OSX. I am proficient with both operating systems and windows just does more, at times it is more difficult to accomplish the same goal and at times windows will do what Mac OSwhatever can’t. Microsoft took off with Windows because of the fact that the pc architecture was not bogarted like apple hardware is, but was made avaiable for cloning by anyone. Sounds a lot like open-source to me. Bill Gates was simply on the better end of the deal than Jobs. As far as viruses, the guys writing them are solely to blame and should be locked up for grand larsony because of the amount of money wasted in fixing the problems they caused. No matter how good a program is, it can be cracked if someone tries hard enough. I seem to remember downloading security updates from apple, and i bet there are many more that aren’t patched because they haven’t been uncovered yet. The best i can hope for with my Mac is that marketshare stays low enough so virus writers don’t want to spend the time writing viruses for it. With the intel processors and boot camp being used, i bet its not long before Mac antivirus software is a neccesity and universal binary viruses are very commonplace.