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ZOTOB Virus Targets Corporate Computers

August 18, 2005
Most consumers using their computers at home do not run a high risk of getting infected with the ZOTOB virus that is rapidly spreading across the Internet, but security experts say individuals should stay alert anyway. ZOTOB has knocked out corporate servers throughout the United States, including those at the Associated Press, ABC and other large media companies.

“TrendLabs has declared a Medium Risk alert in order to control the spread of this ZOTOB variant. Infection reports have been received from Brazil and the United States,” said Trend Micro, an Internet security firm.

The company said the virus is actually a computer worm that affects computer networks that run the Windows 2000 operating system. However, there have been some reports of infections of systems running Windows XP, which many individual consumers use.

The worm slips into the targeted network through the system' s “plug and play” hardware detection feature. Last week Microsoft released a critical patch to plug up the vulnerability, but many users have not downloaded and installed it.

Once the worm infects a system, it copies itself and spreads to other computers on the network. Trend Micro security experts say computers can be infected without the user being aware of it.

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