Conficker copycat prowls for victims, says Microsoft
An old, but little-known worm has copied some of the infection strategies of Conficker, the worm that raised a ruckus last week, Microsoft security researchers said late Friday.
Neeris, which harks to May 2005, is now exploiting the same Windows bug that Conficker put to good use, and is spreading through flash drives, another Conficker characteristic, said Ziv Mador and Aaron Putnam, researchers with the Microsoft Malware Protection Center.
According to Mador and Putnam, Neeris' makers recently added an exploit for the MS08-067 vulnerability that Microsoft patched last October. The emergency update -- one of the rare times Microsoft has issued a patch outside its usual monthly scheduled --- fixed a flaw in the Windows Server service, which is used for file- and print-sharing by Windows PCs.
