There is an iPhone worm that is making the news this week. One thing that may not be obvious in some of the stories is that the iPhones that are vulnerable have been hacked by their owners or “jailbroken” as it’s commonly referred to by people in the community. People may benefit from hacking their iPhones by being able to run apps that Apple hasn’t approved, installing interface modifications, or pirating App Store applications. But, there are also consequences such as instability, reduced battery life, and now the threat of worms attacking your phone and copying your personal data. You can read more about this in iPhone security problems bring new risks at Computerworld.
Tag Archives: worm
Conficker Worm Now an Epidemic
According to Panda Security, the Windows worm outbreak that I reported on last Thursday is now an epidemic. Panda found that 6% of the two million computers they scanned were infected by the worm.
Read my article from last week for information on what to do to. Additionally, F-Secure notes that “Downadup disables Automatic Updates, so updated versions of MSRT [ed: links for this are contained in last week's article] will need to be downloaded manually, it will not be automatically installed on infected machines.”
Conficker Worm Infects 3.5M Windows PCs So Far
F-Secure, a security firm based in Finland, conservatively estimates that 3.5 million Windows PCs have been infected with a new worm called “Downadup” or “Conficker.” It is infecting Windows computers at a rate of more than 1 million in the past 24 hours. According to ComputerWorld, the worm exploits “a bug in the Windows Server service” that is used in all versions of Windows currently supported by Microsoft; including Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
Microsoft recommends that Windows users install an update provided in late October and follow that up by running the latest version of their Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) which was updated this January in response to the Downadup worm. There is another cure, however.
Update: According to Panda Security, the Downadup outbreak is now an epidemic. Additionally, F-Secure notes that “Downadup disables Automatic Updates, so updated versions of MSRT will need to be downloaded manually, it will not be automatically installed on infected machines.”