Monday, July 19, 2010

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-042 - Critical

25,000 PCs Affected By Microsoft Zero-Day Vulnerability

Hackers have attacked 25,000 PCs affected by the Windows Help and Support Center zero-day vulnerability, patched yesterday. According to a post on the Microsoft Malware Protection Centre (MMPC) blog, the attacks on infected systems accelerated significantly after the company announced that it would be patching the vulnerability in this month's MS10-042 bulletin.

Writing on the MMPC blog, Holly Stewart wrote: “Early on, we saw attackers incorporate code to single out Windows XP targets, but more recently the attackers have been less discriminant, attempting this attack on a variety of operating systems.”

She said that the hackers had primarily targeted computers in Portugal and Russia, but that the UK had seen the most number of increased attacks on computer systems running Windows XP.

"Although Portugal has remained one of the most targeted areas, attacks on Russian systems have surpassed it over the past few weeks.  Russia has now seen more than ten times the number of attack attempts per computer in comparison to the global average." she wrote

"The UK, in particular, was one of the regions in which we witnessed a surge in attack attempts over this past weekend."

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