Microsoft Fights Bugs, Corruption and Overload Issues

January 10th, 2009

Microsoft is having quite a week. The company is seeing reports of vulnerabilities before Patch Tuesday, fixing data-corruption issues, and getting flooded with visitors trying to download the beta version of Windows 7.First up, security. If you didn’t patch for the Microsoft Windows Server RPC Handling Remote Code Execution Vulnerability last year, you could be targeted this year through a vulnerability that can be spread through USB ports.

Security researchers are warning of a worm dubbed Downadup. It appeared on Dec. 30 and can not only propagate by exploiting the vulnerability, but also by infected USB sticks and by exploiting weak passwords, according to Symantec.

The W32.Spybot, W32.Randex, and W32.Mytob variants all used almost identical methods to spread, the company said, but the new variant requires more effort to protect corporate networks.

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