Flaw stymies Norton Internet Security

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Security Programs Becoming Major Infection Vector

It's not just Norton that is suffering from Microsoft's shoddy
code base. Now Black Ice and "Real Secure" (ha ha) firewalls are
being brought down by Saturday's latest worm, the "Witty Worm"

The Washington Post has posted an article titled "Witty Worm
Wrecks Computers"

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&cid=1804&e=3&u=/washpost/20040321/
tc_washpost/a11310_2004mar20

Quotes from the article:

"A quickly spreading Internet worm destroyed or damaged tens
of thousands of personal computers worldwide Saturday
morning by exploiting a security flaw in a firewall program
designed to protect PCs from online threats, computer experts
said."

The "Witty" worm writes random data onto the hard drives of
computers equipped with the Black Ice and Real Secure Internet
firewall products, causing the drives to fail and making it
impossible to restart the PCs. Unlike many recent worms that
arrive as e-mail attachments, it spreads automatically to
vulnerable computers without any action on the part of the
user."

"At least 50,000 computers have been infected so far, according
to Reston, Va.-based computer security firm iDefense and the
Bethesda, Md.-based SANS Institute."

"Most infected computers will have to be rebuilt from scratch
unless their owners instead decide to buy new ones, said Ken
Dunham, a computer security expert at iDefense."

"The thing looks like it will corrupt or crash most drives enough
so that reinstallation is going to be required," he said. "This is a
very destructive worm."

Posted by: Aphelion   Posted on: 03/21/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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