Microsoft Says Recovery from Malware Becoming Impossible

[benburch]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1945808,00.asp

Microsoft Says Recovery from Malware Becoming Impossible
By Ryan Naraine
April 4, 2006

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.—In a rare discussion on the severity of the Windows malware scourge, a Microsoft security official said businesses should consider investing in an automated process to wipe hard drives and reinstall operating systems as a practical way to recover from malware infestation.

"When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit," Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, said in a presentation at the InfoSec World conference here.

Offensive rootkits, which are used hide malware programs and maintain an undetectable presence on an infected machine, have become the weapon of choice for virus and spyware writers and, because they often use kernel hooks to avoid detection, Danseglio said IT administrators may never know if all traces of a rootkit have been successfully removed.

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Microsoft admits that its operating systems are such trash that they cannot even begin to secure them!

THIS is why you need to move to either Linux or MacOS X as your operating system, and do so ASAP.