Years-Old Conficker Worm Still a Threat 71
RedEaredSlider writes "The Conficker worm is still a threat, even though it is more than two years old and nobody has used it in a botnet attack yet. The problem is that so many machines are infected (largely because many don't realize it) and it's such a flexible piece of malware."
Re:WGA/pirated copies of Windows (Score:2, Informative)
One problem is the low-end users who have systems they have bought from a "friend" which turns out to have a WGA-failing pirated copy of Windows. Windows Updates refused to allow it to be patched, leaving it to sit there waiting to be infested.
Bzzt, Wrong.
WGA only prevents optional updates being installed not security patches. (It only prevents installing Internet Explorer 7/8/9, Windows Media Player 10/11, etc). Microsoft knew that would be stupid from the beginning so they never tried it.
They did toy with the idea of preventing Service Pack 3 from installing without WGA [but not the individual patches themselves] but I don't think they went through with that due to the outrage from the security community about how that would harm everyone else not just the person who couldn't install it.
Re:WGA/pirated copies of Windows (Score:5, Informative)
This is not true. [microsoft.com]
"The Automatic Updates feature is not affected by the WGA validation check. Therefore, you can use the Automatic Updates feature to make sure that you receive critical Windows updates."
Only some updates are marked as "genuine only," and this doesn't include security updates (which are all critical).