As expected, Microsoft thwarted an attack set for midnight on Saturday on its Web site by the Blaster worm, which has infected hundreds of thousands of Windows computers.
The Blaster worm, also called MSBlaster or LoveSan, crashes Windows XP and Windows 2000 computers and instructs them to attack a Microsoft Web site with an anti-Blaster patch just after midnight, local times, Saturday.
A Microsoft spokesman said the company`s site had no problems as a result of the worm, which has infected 386 000 or so computers, according to an estimate from anti-virus vendor Symantec.
A day earlier, Microsoft said it had protected its network by eliminating the Web page with the URL used by Blaster.
Although the attack on Microsoft failed, the worm will continue to spread until computers with the Windows hole get patched, security experts have said. In addition, there are two new versions circulating, including one that installs a backdoor Trojan application that provides an attacker remote access to the computer.
The patch for the security hole, which affects Windows XP and Windows 2000, as well as Windows NT and Windows Server 2003, can be downloaded at http://www.microsoft.com.
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