Boot Sector Rootkit Targets XP
A few stories like the following ought to be enough to boost the rate of Vista adoption.
Attackers have successfully crafted a boot sector rootkit that is more difficult to detect than traditional rootkits and, because it activates before the operating system, has broad access to the infected devices. Oliver Friedrichs of Symantec was quoted by ComputerWorld as noting:
This is a serious threat, said Friedrichs, and illustrates the skill of some cybercriminals. "Although the concept [of a MBR rootkit] isn't new, it's not easy to pull this off," he said. "It's a very sophisticated attack, and the amount of time and effort they spent creating this is very substantial."We're not dealing with amateurs here."
According to a blog post at Symantec, the rootkit can be removed by running the fixmbr command from the Windows XP recovery disk. (The OS can't be running).
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