[Knitebane]

Those permissions are denied to end users on our domain.

That's assuming that Windows works the way that Microsoft says it does.

Granted, most users don't have the know-how to work their way around such restrictions.

That's okay, the worm writers do.

The worm, which several security companies have described as surging dramatically during the past few days, exploits a bug in the Windows Server service used by all supported versions of Microsoft Corp.'s operating system, including Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008.

[js1138]

This is the biggest worm attack for years, and in theory could hit 350 million PCs or thereabouts. However, in spite of this “amazing” worm “skyrocketing,” F-Secure says: “Downadup infections appear to have peaked during the week.” Its latest reported estimate is only 15 million, which is not all that impressive for something that was first seen last November, and should be able to double every day.

Maybe the next version(s) will do better. But let's hope not.

Of course, there's no real reason why anyone should have Downadup/Conflickr: Microsoft patched that security hole last October with Microsoft Security Update MS08-067 (KB958644), and on October 25, I posted Microsoft releases critical patch, extra to Windows update to tell you to install it. I'm sure there are a few unlucky souls among the estimated 15m victims, but I suspect most have got Downadup/Conflickr because they are too lazy or too dim to install Windows Updates, or they're running pirated copies of Windows.