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Deworming The Globe Of Windows 2000
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-11-17
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
It's been several years since Windows 2000 finally arrived as a replacement for Windows NT and Windows 98. For those locations that have ignored the move to XP and yawned at all the news about Vista going gold, it may be time to break out a purchase order and join the 21st Century.
Out of the vulnerabilities Microsoft fixed with its November patches included a critical one that could have been exploited on Windows 2000 systems. McAfee Avert Labs blogger Monty Ijzerman wrote how this hole could have been targeted by a worm and committed the sort of system atrocities that give administrators nightmares.
"The MS06-070 Workstation Service vulnerability can be remotely exploited without user interaction," Ijzerman said. "On Windows 2000, no authentication is needed when sending traffic to this service."
This issue also affected Windows XP SP2, but posed far less of a threat. Microsoft rated the threat to XP as Low, while giving the threat to 2000 a Critical rating.
Windows 2000 extended security update support ends in July 2010. Microsoft will no longer provide security updates after that for the operating system.
Even though 2007 is approaching, it could be time to move on from Windows 2000. Ijzerman cited a trend McAfee has graphed, showing a steadily rising number of Critical vulnerabilities being patched by Microsoft on a monthly basis.
Windows 2000 has been around long enough that malicious types can probably craft attacks on other unpatched issue in the older operating system. Windows XP shipped with a firewall activated by default, and as a result attacks have largely shifted to application-based flaws instead of ones in the OS.
People and businesses can't be forced to upgrade systems. Yet the benefit of doing so could have an impact on the rising problem of machines being hijacked on a daily basis for use in spamming and DdoS attacks.
Steve Linford of SpamHaus said in an email that the organization sees between 50,000 to 100,000 PCs taken over on a daily basis. These could be new or reinfected machines; SpamHaus adds thousands of IP addresses to its CBL/XBL database in a given day.
Some people will likely counter the 2000 to XP suggestion with a recommendation for Linux or a BSD variant instead. Those will be fair points. However, for the casual computer user, a switch to the friendliest of Linux distros may be a daunting challenge without some handholding.
Now multiply that handholding by a global scale. That's a tough challenge. Maybe it's surmountable in the future. Today it's hard to see that being overcome. But anything that removes Windows 2000 installations today minimizes the potential of further vectors like MS06-070 being available for exploit.
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Tag: Windows 2000
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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