Laptop users can bring the Blaster worm into companies
The technical support department at Sophos, a world leader in
anti-virus protection for businesses, has urged companies to
safeguard their networks from laptops infected with W32/Blaster-A, the
latest worm which has affected computers worldwide.
The Blaster worm, first seen on Monday 11 August, takes
advantage of a Microsoft security vulnerability. A patch that
addresses this vulnerability was made available on 16 July, and
many companies downloaded it as well as updated the anti-virus
software to protect their networks against Blaster and similar
exploitative attacks.
However, some of these companies are revealing that they are
still being hit by the worm, the culprit being their company
laptops. Laptops are disconnected frequently from company networks
when workers are on the road or working from home and may have not
been fully updated with virus protection or security patches.
Even if the worm cannot spread to the protected computers in the
network, it can still be used by the worm to launch a denial of
service attack on the Microsoft website, windowsupdate.com.
"Don't forget about the laptops when you are sorting out your
computer security," reminds Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant at Sophos. "It is because they are not always
connected to the network that administrators need to be extra
vigilant about making laptops as impenetrable to viruses as
possible."
Sophos even provides an easy way for remote workers (such as
laptop users or employees based at their homes) to be kept
up-to-date with their virus protection. Remote Update keeps Sophos Anti-Virus up to
date on an end-user's computer via a website or network connection
provided by their employer. It is ideally suited to employees of
organisations who are infrequently, or never, connected to the main
company network, but who do connect to the internet from time to
time.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.