Future versions of Slammer may get you if you don’t update, says Microsoft, chastened by its own failure to keep all SQL Server patches up to date
Microsoft suffered, along with users, in this week’s Slammer virus outbreak this week because it has a loose desktop security policy, admitted a Microsoft security officer. He also warned that Slammer variants could attack in future. “Morphs of Slammer could cause more problems,” said Stuart Okin, Microsoft UK’s chief security officer. “Slammer had no payload, so there was no clean-up required. Systems could be switched off and on again. It was just a denial-of-service attack.” These variants will not get past patches that fix the underlying vulnerability, but they could infect systems that have specifically block Slammer. Full Story
