News

Microsoft Updates Web Resources for Blaster Worm

• By Scott Bekker
• August 14, 2003

Stepping up to its role at the center of the Blaster worm epidemic, Microsoft on Thursday updated its main Blaster information page and peppered links to Blaster warnings throughout its Web site.

As of Thursday afternoon, the main Microsoft.com Web page had nine separate links directly to information about Blaster, not counting general links to the security and Windows sections of the site, which also have substantial warnings.

The Blaster Web page was updated Thursday afternoon and now contains a more intuitive, step-by-step set of recommendations for non-technical business users and home users -- walking them through the steps of enabling a firewall, updating Windows, ensuring anti-virus software is running and removing the worm. The Microsoft site points users to worm removal tools from Symantec, Trend Micro, Computer Associates and Network Associates, which are the company's partners in the Virus Information Alliance. Other security vendors also offer Blaster removal tools.

The main Microsoft Blaster Web page can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/blast.asp.

Microsoft has a more technical page for network administrators that was last updated on Tuesday at www.microsoft.com/technet/security/virus/alerts/msblaster.asp.

On Wednesday, Microsoft also posted a page for Internet Security & Acceleration (ISA) Server customers with recommended settings for the firewall component of that software that will help minimize the effect of the worm.

That page is available at www.microsoft.com/isaserver/techinfo/prevent/blasterworm.asp.