Windows 2000 faces security melt down

COMPANIES WHICH have still not upgraded their Windows 2000 machines could find themselves suffering from super critical worm attacks.

Despite the fact that the operating system is as old as Spinola, and that Microsoft refused to service them any more, there is still a large number of Windows 2000 machines out there.

According to News.com, a "critical" Windows 2000 exploit has been released on the Internet designed to kick the crutch of the ageing operating system.

The exploit takes advantage of a security hole in a file system and print request application "Workstation Service". The flaw can be exploited remotely without any user interaction.

McAfee's Global Threat Group claims that a hacker could write a piece of code that targets Windows 2000, and that replicates itself, and then you would have a worm go around the Internet.

Microsoft has released a patch for the operating system using security bulletin MS06-070. This is despite saying that it had given up on Windows 2000 and would not make any more security fixes for it. Now Vole is saying that it is studying the code and plans to publish a security advisory to inform customers.

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