I just found this on a discussion group and decided to pass it on to those of you who have not switched to GNU/Linux (yet):
Many folks are coming to me and asking me to help them solve their computer issues of sudden reboots, or massive slowdowns, by helping them o reload their Microsoft Windows 98, XP, or 2000.
I resist with the simple fact that I can load Linux for them, immune to the million new Microsoft virus/malware/trojans/exploits in about 20 minutes while the vulnerable Windows will require at least two hours, and I won’t waste my time if they won’t run an IPCOP box firewall.
Now, there has been, for about a year, a most serious reason to dump all MS, and switch to GNU/Linux! It is the “Storm” virus/worm/bot rootkit for all Microsoft OS computers!
This worm/virus/trojan/bot has run for at least a year, and is difficult, if not impossible, to stop, as it has been updated several times!
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/storm.asp
Security experts state there is no solution to permanently repair and kill it in the Microsoft Windows environment, because it:
A. keeps a low profile,
B. only 20 – 25% of infections pop up, as it is ‘smart’,
C. It is being manipulated, updated, remotely, after it is installed and functional,
D. Storm bot net is purportedly run by active Russian programmers who are very apt, on behalf of crime families. Nobody seems to know who is aying the big bucks.
E. It has a random operational cycle.
F. The combination of mutation, updates, randomness, and social engineering of naive Windows users are powerful
G. It is a sophicated rootkit/worm/virus/bot
http://www2.csoonline.com/blog_view.html?CID=32845
“I uploaded the attachment to Virustotal.com, which uses many different antivirus programs to scan uploads. Of 31 programs, only 4—ClamAV, Safe, Kaspersky, and Symantec—reported a virus.”
“According to Postini, double-clicking the attachment unleashes a succession of modern malware attack methods. First, a rootkit will ttempt to hide the malware from both human and antivirus scans. Then the worm will attempt to disable antivirus programs. Next, the worm connects to a custom peer-to-peer network used by the worm’s creators to issue commands. Those commands might be to download additional malware, send spam, or transmit personal data stolen from the victim computer.
Finally, to spread itself further, the worm searches for e-mail addresses on the victim machine and sends itself to any discovered addresses. The worm is self-mutating, according to Postini, changing e-mail subject lines, attachment file names and malware characteristics in order to evade antivirus and antispam programs.
Cloudmark, another e-mail security company, says it sees similar outbreak numbers. Today’s flood is 10 times as large as one this past unday, which also involved the virulent Storm Worm.”
On top of the WGA fiasco, that forced 500,000 Microsoft users to fax to Redmond proof of purchase before they could reactivate their computers, and then the one week shutdown of WGA servers over Labor Day, added to the Vista failure, lack of drivers, then to cap it all, the IE6/7 vulnerabilities that run even when the user is in Opera or Firefox, this issue that requires a disk wipe and reinstall is a total waste of resources, time, and money!
These are just some of the arguments I present to my friends, family, and clients. There is no fix for “stupid”, so some have to be let go from my world of happy computing, to roast in the Hell of the Evil Empire of Redmond, when they insist that they ‘like’ the absolutely broken Microsoft malware, and that they aren’t ‘pwned’.
Yes, I even show them the logs of 1,477 or more infestations in their ‘Microsoft’ computers! I think many humans are genetically linked to Lemmings, except the Lemmings only migrate over cliffs occasionally, whilst humans seem to do so repeatedly, and pay up to $100 for the privilege of a repeat performance!
