Microsoft said on Wednesday that a recent Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) issue, that affected a small number of Windows users, was due to the Alureon Rootkit.
In a blog posting on Wednesday, Mike Reavey, the director of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), confirmed the software company had only seen the reboot issues with systems that were infected with malware. "Our investigation has concluded that the reboot occurs because the system is infected with malware, specifically the Alureon rootkit. We were able to reach this conclusion after the comprehensive analysis of memory dumps obtained from multiple customer machines and extensive testing against third party applications and software," said Reavey.
The "widespread" reports of issues began surfacing shortly after patch MS10-015 was issued on February 9. Numerous reports were spotted at Microsoft’s help forums by users who were complaining that after the update they were receiving a BSOD. Microsoft Answers, was filled with many users who were angry at the company for what they claim the update did to their machine. Microsoft responded to the claims and hinted at the possibility of Malware being at fault late last week.
The patch in question, MS10-015, one of 13 security updates Microsoft issued on Patch Tuesday, fixed a 17-year-old kernel bug in all 32-bit versions of Windows. The vulnerability went public when a Google engineer disclosed the bug and posted proof-of-concept attack code. As Neowin previously reported, Microsoft said it would fix the 17 year old bug that was discovered by the Google engineer. The bug, patched in the update, is related to the Virtual Dos Machine (VDM) which is used to support 16-bit applications.
Microsoft says that anyone who believes their system has been infected by the Alureon rootkit can visit Consumer Security Support or contact Microsoft's Customer Service and Support hotlines at no extra charge.
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