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The Denver Post describes a recent controlled experiment in which six computers were attached to the Internet and then watched to see if they attracted any viruses or worms.
Windows Service Pack 1, which was shipped by Microsoft until last August, got hammered:
Windows Service Pack 1, or SP 1 [...] was sold in computer stores until a few months ago.
SP 1 was attacked 4,857 times. It was infested within 18 minutes by the Blaster and Sasser worms. Within an hour it became a “bot,” or a machine controlled by a remote computer, and began attacking other Windows computers.
The good news is that the latest versions of Windows were unaffected. The Macintosh and Linux systems in the test were also unaffected.
So if you’re running Windows, make sure it’s the latest version:
Many computers around the world are still running Windows SP 1, though exact numbers are hard to come by. Gartner research director Michael Silver estimates that by the end of 2005, half of the world’s desktops used in businesses will still be using SP 1.
If you are running Service Pack 1, make sure your security features are turned on:
SP 2 comes with a firewall and automatic security updates, said Sundwall. These features had to be manually turned on in SP 1, which meant that some users missed out on computer patches.
