'Amazing' worm attack infects 9 million PCs

Calling the scope of the attack "amazing," security researchers at F-Secure Corp. yesterday said that 6.5 million Windows PCs have been infected by the "Downadup" worm in the last four days, and that nearly 9 million have been compromised in just over two weeks.

Early Friday, the Finnish firm revised its estimate of the number of computers that had fallen victim to the worm, and explained how it came to the figure. "The number of Downadup infections is skyrocketing, "Toni Koivunen, an F-Secure researcher, said in an entry to the company's Security Lab blog. "From an estimated 2.4 million infected machines to over 8.9 million during the last four days. That's just amazing."


Microsoft has recommended that Windows users install the emergency update, then run the January edition of the MSRT to scrub the worm from compromised computers.

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Windows XP Service Pack 3 Available on Microsoft's Servers

The gHacks blog sniffs out some installation files for Windows XP Service Pack 3 hosted on Microsoft's Windows Update servers, while official notice of the update seems to be running a bit late. You can grab the 32-bit English-language SP3 here, while other languages are available at the gHacks page. I installed the update this morning and all seems to be going well so far.

To use a Safe Boot / Safe Mode option

To use a Safe Boot option, follow these steps.

Restart your computer, and when the Boot menu appears, press F8.

When the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, select an option, and then press ENTER.

When the Boot menu appears again, with the words "Safe Mode" displayed in red at the bottom, select the installation you want to start, and then press ENTER.


Some people have problems getting into safe mode by this method for whatever reason. Here's a harder, alternative method.

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type msconfig in the textbox and press ENTER
4. Click Boot.ini tab
5. Click /Safeboot option
6. Click OK and reboot

You will reboot back into safe mode. Once you are finished, reload msconfig and do the following to get back into regular mode:

1. Load msconfig (as above)
2. Click General tab
3. Click Normal Startup
4. Click OK and reboot