Security researchers have spotted malicious code that triggers a critical vulnerability in the Chinese version of Windows 2000, and warned non-Chinese users to expect attacks. Symantec confirmed that the proof-of-concept code publicly posted to the milw0rm.com site earlier in the day successfully attacks Chinese editions of Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4) by exploiting one of the two critical bugs in Windows GDI, or graphics device interface, that Microsoft patched last week.
But while the attack code works on Chinese versions of Windows, it doesn"t when pitched against other editions. Rather than allow hackers to execute additional code - malware to hijack the PC, for instance - the exploit simply crashes Explorer, the Windows file manager, on non-Chinese versions of the OS.
"This exploit will not successfully allow for remote code execution against English systems [but it] can successfully trigger a crash on English versions of Microsoft Windows," Symantec wrote in an analysis for customers of its DeepSight threat notification service.