The Sasser virus has been making the rounds over the weekend, and will likely reap havoc today when people return to the office.

Over the weekend, I've had several people call me who have had their computers spontaneously shutting down when connected to the internet.

Here are the tools you need to avoid this latest vulnerability. Download these two tools to your computer and then disconnect from the internet.

1) Download and intstall the correct patch for your operating system:
Now you are protected from the virus.


2) Download and runl this tool to ensure that your computer is no longer infected.

The Sasser virus appears to exploit a similar vulnerability to the Blaster virus from last summer. Like Blaster, Sasser can cause a computer to shut down spontaneously without necessarily infecting that computer. It affects computers running Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 Server. Computers running Windows 95, 98 and ME are unaffected.

Also like Blaster, Sasser exploits a whole in Microsoft's operating systems. Programs such as Norton Anti-Virus cannot prevent an attack from Sasser. Only a good firewall, and/ or the new patch from Microsoft, will keep Sasser at bay.

03 May 2004  |   permalink