[Am-info] Growing fears over net threat

[Erick Andrews]

This article also has a nice collectible picture of Bill Gates...
if you're into that sort of thing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3115389.stm

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Growing fears over net threat

An upsurge of hacker activity on the internet is causing alarm
among computer experts.

US Government experts say they have received reports that hackers
are looking for ways to take advantage of a critical flaw in
Microsoft's Windows.

"An internet-wide increase in scanning for vulnerable computers
over the past several days reinforces the urgency for updating
affected systems," said the US Department of Homeland Security.

It warned that the flaw in Windows could soon be used by a
computer virus to disrupt traffic on the net and potentially
affect millions of machines worldwide.

Free fix

The vulnerability affects almost all versions of Microsoft's
Windows operating system.  It affects the technology used to share
data files across computer networks.

It involves a category of vulnerabilities known as buffer
overflows, which let intruders run malicious code on affected
machines, giving them total control over the systems.

AFFECTED SYSTEMS Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
Terminal Services Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Microsoft Windows
XP Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Microsoft warned of the flaw two weeks ago and released a fix for
the problem that can be downloaded for free from its site.

Concern about the threat to computers worldwide has been growing.

Instructions about how to exploit the flaw in Windows were
released on the internet several days ago.

Since then, experts have noticed a rise in the hacker activity,
with intruders looking for computers which were open to attack.

"Because of the significant percentage of internet-connected
computers running Windows operating systems and using high-speed
connections, the potential exists for a worm or virus to propagate
rapidly across the internet," warned the Department of Homeland
Security.

It has urged computer users to download a free patch that has been
available on Microsoft's site since 16 July.

Cautious words

FBI spokesman Bill Murray said the bureau was studying several
hacker tools designed so far and was highly concerned about a
wide-scale internet attack.

"We implore the private sector, both business and home users, to
visit the Microsoft website and install the patches and
mitigations necessary to prevent this from creating a negative
effect on the internet as a whole," he said.

Some experts have been more cautious about the immediate threat to
the net.

Oliver Friedrichs of anti-virus firm Symantec said the widespread
attacks might not occur soon because hackers still need to resolve
important glitches in their own attack tools.

"The exploit needs to be perfected," he said.  "The effort applied
to the exploit is certainly increased, but we're not sure if
that's indicative of when we might see a widespread threat.
People certainly need to be aware of this."
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-- 
Erick Andrews