Rootkit May Be Behind Windows Blue Screen

L3sPau1 writes "A rootkit infection may be the cause of a Windows Blue Screen of Death issue experienced by Windows XP users who applied the latest round of Microsoft patches. It appears that the affected Windows PCs had the rootkit infection prior to deploying the Microsoft patches. Researcher Patrick W. Barnes, investigating the issue, has isolated the infection to the Windows atapi.sys file, a driver used by Windows to connect hard drives and other components. Barnes identified the infection as the Tdss-rootkit, which surfaced last November and has been spreading quickly, creating zombie machines for botnet activity."

Comments

Sounds like a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one way of forcing users to take care of an infection.

Re:Sounds like a good thing

[Sleepy]

That's a strawman argument.
It's natural for security minded folks to "jab" at Microsoft (in a manner similar to how safety advocates "jab" at lead-painted Chinese toys).

On a SANE OS, rootkits can't be installed by regular users who are viewing a banner ad, or plugging in a storage device like a memory stick or USB picture frame.

Re:Sounds like a good thing

[ozmanjusri]

Vulnerabilities in Flashplayer are typically cross-platform; an exploit that works in Windows will work (after modification, but it will work) on Linux too.

Can you link to any actual exploits, not just those imagined by Microsoft's marketing department?

Re:Ah, well, that lets Microsoft off the hook then

[Com2Kid]

After all, there's no way that their malware tool could have spotted it

If a system has been rooted, nothing short of booting to another OS from a known clean media, mounting the disk read only, and scanning, is guaranteed to detect a root kit.

That'd make updates a real pain in the arse to install...

Re:Ah, well, that lets Microsoft off the hook then

[spun]

That is BS and you know it.

The user installed the virus into their system by doing something stupid.

Its like blaming the US Government for letting businesses go over sea when you still shop at Walmart.

Your response is a cop out.

Your response is what is commonly known as 'blaming the victim.' Seriously, you can't imagine any other way for malware to get onto a system except user stupidity? I'd call that a failure on your part. You know, Windows fanbois remind me of battered women, explaining to others how they walked into a door or fell down some stairs. No you didn't, you let somebody beat the shit out of you and then covered it up.

Re:Ah, well, that lets Microsoft off the hook then

[TheLink]

> Saying Microsoft is responsible for ensuring compatability with 3rd party software is ludicrious.

And saying Microsoft is responsible for ensuring compatibility with _malicious_ 3rd party software is even sillier.

If your system is screwed up by a rootkit, there is no way to 100% predict what could happen if you try to continue using it (including trying to install patches).

If the BSODs are only happening to rootkitted XP boxes then it's clearly not Microsoft's fault.

Re:Ah, well, that lets Microsoft off the hook then

[Opportunist]

As much as I hate defending MS, I can't help but doing it here.

A rootkit (and that is one) in a system means that you, being software running on that system, have no chance of detecting it, at least if it has done its homework. For the patcher, those checksums might even have been correct.

It also needn't be manipulated files. Windows, as any OS that has to allow low level drivers, allows you to load non-MS ring0 drivers. Like, say, Linux. It's either that or writing a device driver for every single pesky little controller out there. Do you think MS would do that? Or even do it well?

Now, you don't need drivers for hard drives themselves, but for their controllers. And spyware is quite keen on snuggling up to those controller and "filtering" the calls between them and the OS. Now, those spyware drivers are deemed part of the I/O system (for obvious reasons, they are part of the HD controller drivers as far the OS is concerned). If that driver cannot be loaded because that patch fixes a loophole the spyware used, the OS identifies that as a critical error in the HD controller driver and cannot access the hard drive anymore. BSOD.

The very same would probably happen in Linux, in BSD, in ... whatever Apple's OS is called, I forgot. You have a driver that is deemed critical by the system that fails to load.

If you want to blame anything on MS here, it's probably that this rootkit drivers could be installed in the first place. And I honestly don't know if it's MS to blame or the user. What should MS do if the user clicks "allow" on anything he gets asked? Take away control from the user? I doubt you'd like that.

Re:Ah, well, that lets Microsoft off the hook then

[Opportunist]

Over 90% of current infections are due to social engineering (aka "user stupidity"). The rest is usually due to certain third party software from a company with a big A, usually a certain reader for a Pretty Dumb Format or a tool to make webpages flashy.

If it's blaming the victim to say that it's effing stupid to open attachments that are sent by "Lawyer" and titled "last reminder" or run "security patches" their bank sends them because else their account is closed immediately, then yes, I blame the victim. Stupidity is no excuse. And this behaviour is, bluntly, EFFING stupid!