[Breaking News! Tuesday, August 16th: Zotob May Be Responsible for Computer Crashes Across the U.S. Read Here]
Today’s Windows worm, brought to you by the letters Plug and Play, is the worm Zotob. Zotob attacks a flaw in the Windows “Plug and Play” feature, and also is known by the name of the program it leaves on your hard drive, “Botzor.exe”. (Some are mistakenly calling it “Zobot”, an easy mistake to make.)
Zotob (or Botzor.exe) happily munches through holes in the Plug and Play flaws in Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP (but not properly patched versions of XP Service Pack 2), where it will prevent you from accessing online assistance at your antivirus vendor’s website, and, more insidiously, where it will connect to an IRC server, providing hackers access to and control over your system.
According to a statement issued by Microsoft, “Microsoft’s investigation into this malicious act is ongoing so that we can continue to understand how we can help support customers. We are working closely with our anti-virus partners and aiding law enforcement in its investigation.”
Fortunately, the Zobot worm can be thwarted from infecting computers and depositing its nasty Boztor.exe by a patch issued by Microsoft just this past week.
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