1 In 3 Windows PCs Still Vulnerable To Worm Attack

CWmike writes "The worm that has infected several million Windows PCs, Downadup or 'Conficker,' is having a field day because nearly a third of all systems remain unpatched 80 days after Microsoft rolled out an emergency fix, security firm Qualys said. Downadup surged dramatically this week and has infected an estimated 3.5 million PCs so far, according to Finnish security company F-Secure Corp. The worm exploits a bug in the Windows Server service used in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008. Qualys' CTO said, 'These slow [corporate] patch cycles are simply not acceptable. They lead directly to these high infection rates.'" This is indicative of why some are calling for Microsoft to rethink Patch Tuesday, as reader buzzardsbay pointed out.

Comments

Its M$ fault

[hesaigo999ca]

I say, if M$ were to actually offer these patches freely sort of like "use our product because like Linux you get free stuff..." not only would they get a more secure overall experience for the user, but you would also see less infection rates...and this would lead to them being able to learn who still uses windows xp...even if it isn't legit copy.

At some point they could trigger a more effective update scenario..."we have updated your system but see you are not using a legit copy of windows, if you want to be legal, we can send you a key for 49$."

You would see millions of people line up for that, because not only would it mean they are safe, but everyone who has a copy of windows illegally can now rest assured they won't be penalized...and in this unstable economy, how do you convince someone to get a legit key, if it isn't by making it very cheap. I know I will never get legit xp or vista because i can go linux. If M$ came to my door and said "hey uninstall or pay" I wuold uninstall unless it was cheap enough. 49$ is cheap enough.

Re:Genuine Advantage Validation

[drinkypoo]

I've got a method to bypass activation and WGA that makes every copy of Windows look legit to MS. There's only one very small requirement, that I'm not going to divulge, as I'm not telling you how to pirate software.

I've got a foolproof method for producing free energy in the lab, but I'm not going to demonstrate it because I'm not going to teach you how to violate the laws of thermodynamics.

Newsworthy?

[dov_0]

So what actually makes this news? Microsoft's security model is faulty by design. What's new?