Latest Windows Attack Has Temporary Fix
Whenever a successful utility or fix has been developed to alleviate the intrusion and exploit of malware, it benefits the user community. To fight against the exploit of Windows shortcuts, Sophos, a security company, announced they had a utility that will stop any attempts of malware within shortcut files in Windows. The utility is a temporary fix for users of Windows until Microsoft comes up with their own permanent fix for this situation. Meanwhile, a group manager of the Microsoft Security Team said Microsoft does not necessarily support utilities that came from a third-party. They provide a recommendation that their users follow their security notice, 2286198, in order to assist in the protection against related attacks.
The exploit in question lies in the area where the Windows operating system parses a shortcut, that acts as an alias to a user's documents and application files. Shortcuts are heavily used in the Windows desktop, the taskbar, and the Start menu. Every version of Windows has this exploit, including the recent release of Windows 7 Service Pack one. The code containing the vulnerability has been located on the Internet, as Microsoft and other concerns have found a number of exploited situations using the basis of the vulnerability. The first serious attacks of this exploit was targeted towards utility firms and manufacturing businesses. Symantec noticed approximately sixty percent of the personal computer systems with the infection had been found in the country of Iran. This raises concerns that the Iranian infrastructure may have been specifically chosen as an area of attack.
Microsoft has been advising users to disable the utilization of shortcuts even though it makes traversing through Windows and running files much easier. Sophos has stated the exploit has proven to be an unparalleled situation and users should apply the fix for Microsoft when it is finally available. The Sophos utility does not change windows or related files, it is only a temporary fix. Their utility alerts the user when it comes across a shortcut that may be malicious. Following specific calls if it is trying to run a DLL file or an executable file, when in actuality it should not. It is felt Windows will probably require a fix to the Shell32 file in order to fix the exploit. Since this file is very important to Windows, Microsoft is taking their time making sure their fix is completely correct. If you do use the Sophos utility once Microsoft releases their own fix, all users need to do is uninstall the Sophos utility and then use the fix for Microsoft. Sophos feels until then their utility is very neat, direct, and to the point as well as very easy to use. The Sophos utility which is free to download from their website will work on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows XP. It will not operate on Windows 2000.
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