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Major Microsoft security hole could cause disaster

By Derek Sooman

On August 10, 2005, 8:28 PM

Marc Maiffret, chief hacking officer for eEye Digital Security, has warned that a major hole in Microsoft products could bring about the same kind of disaster as those that resulted in the Blaster and Sasser attacks. Maiffret expects hackers to quickly take advantage of the hole, and that a worm may be on its way as we speak.

He said that the hackers will win the race because they will publish an exploit in the next couple of days and a worm will hit the net soon after. He said that it was such a glaring bug, he didn’t know why anybody else hadn't discovered it.

The hole means that hackers can take over a computer using the operating system’s ‘plug and play’ hardware detection feature.

Fully updated versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP are less vulnerable, but still could be affected by certain remote users or those within local systems, the company said.

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4 comments

User Comments: 4

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  1. August 12, 2005 8:21 AM
    cheesel said:
    Shouldn't "Major Security Flaw in Windows" be a standing headline?
    Reply
  2. August 12, 2005 9:14 AM
    haroldma said:
    Is this new "Major Security Flaw" something new and unusual for Microsoft? I think not...
    Reply
  3. August 12, 2005 11:53 AM
    brandnew427 said:
    You said that right.
    Reply
  4. August 17, 2005 5:44 PM
    m4dxdpd said:
    Funny, you just now found this out?...This has been an issue with Microsofts "Plug & Pray" for quite some time now, and there is already utilities out there to disable this function. :-)
    Reply

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