Sasser worm creates havoc
Tuesday, 4 May 2004 12:43 EST
European sysadmins returning to work after a long Bank Holiday weekend are in for a nasty surprise with the appearance of a fast-spreading Blaster-like Internet worm. Sasser exploits a recently-announced serious Windows vulnerability - a buffer overrun in Windows' Local Security Authority Subsystem Service. The fix for this bug has caused widespread problems, but has now become double-plus critical. So apply with caution. Since its arrival on Saturday, Sasser has spawned three new versions. None spread by email. Each targets vulnerable Win 2000 and XP PCs.
When launched, the worm registers itself in the system registry and begins to aggressively scan IP addresses for PCs which have the vulnerability described in MS04-011. A vulnerable computer will accept commands to download and launch copies of the worm. Downloading is carried out by the FTP protocol. As with Blaster, infected systems will often become unstable, but it's the aggressive scanning behaviour associated with the worm that's causing the most problems.
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