Symantec, Windows flaws spur bot attacks
NEW YORK: A previously identified flaw in Symantec Corp.’s antivirus software and five patched vulnerabilities in Microsoft have facilitated the spread of a malicious bot program, Spybot.ACYR, especially among systems in educational institutions, according to virus experts.
Symantec had updated its virus signatures to identify the bot as it attempts to exploit the flaw some six months back but the bot would have got into systems that had failed to get the updates.
Symantec admitted it has been seeing an unusually high traffic on port 2967 with activity only in the .edu domain. It said the impact of the attack is minimal.
Symantec said the worm attempts to break into computers through a vulnerability in its client security and Symantec AntiVirus. It said a fix was available since 25 May and customers, who had applied the patch in their environment, are not affected by the worm.
