Windows Vista at Risk of Internet Worm, Warn Security Experts

September 12, 2009 · Filed Under News · Comment

A group of key cyber security experts said Thursday that a security hole in the Windows Vista might leave millions of personal computers using the OS at the risk of getting infected by an Internet worm.

The latest Windows security flaw was discovered in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 PCs for which no patch currently exists. The hole was first disclosed by independent researcher Laurent Gaffie who said that flaw could be exploited by a hacker causing personal computers running on Vista or Windows Server 2008 to crash. Later Microsoft experts cautioned that the hole could even be remotely exploited by hackers by creating an Internet worm which could search out and infect any unpatched PC connected to the internet.

Concerns about the latest Windows security flaw recalled the Conficker nightmare last fall when the particular Internet worm exploited a similarly unpatched hole in Windows XP computers. At the height of its infection, the Conficker worm targeted some 10 million Windows XP computers across the world and according to industry experts continues to infect around 5 million machines even today.

However some experts believe that the latest Windows security flaw if patched quickly will not give rise to as pervasive worm as the Conficker. This is because Conficker spread on Windows XP which runs on 65% of Microsoft PCs while the Vista still runs on only 30%.

Tags: Conficker, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Vista security flaw