Romanians Find Cure For Conficker

mask.of.sanity writes "BitDefender has released what it claims is the first vaccination tool to remove the notorious Conficker virus that infected some 9 million Windows machines in about three months. The worm, also known as Downadup, exploits a bug in the Windows Server service used by Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008. It spreads primarily through a buffer overflow vulnerability in Windows Server Service where it disables the operating system update service, security center, including Windows Defender, and error reporting. The Romanian security vendor said its removal tool will delete all versions of Downadup and will not be detected by the virus."

Comments

Another link to the tool

[MadUndergrad]

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

they should know better

[juventasone]

Until the next variant which is likely due out in the next 24 hours.

Re:How long before it doesn't work?

[NeverVotedBush]

I'm more curious why Microsoft itself can't do something like this and why a third-party company, presumably without benefit of Microsoft's source code, is able to diagnose the problem, remove the infection, and "fix" Windows.

Instead, Microsoft is laying off workers. Perhaps they should concentrate on fixing these issues even faster -- which would probably be better for their public perception of being a virus haven -- instead of cutting staff to appease stockholder's lust for profits.

In the long run, producing a quality OS and fixing these kinds of vulnerabilities promptly would do far more good for their bottom line.

Re:How long before it doesn't work?

[lordtoran]

I'm more curious how many people would actually install any "fix" that comes from Eastern Europe.

A lot. Eastern Europe is renowned for having spawned many, many extremely good coders and mathematicans.