Today, the Win32 Blaster Worm is wreaking havoc on the net. You might
think that this only affects Windows networks, but that appears now to not
be the case.
Reports are still coming in, but it does look like the Win32 Blaster Worm
*can* affect Mac networks as well. Macs do appear to be unaffected, but if
even if you have only a single Windows machine on your network, it can
affect not only the Internet connection … but also your LAN. Even
machines that are on private IPs on the net will have connectivity
problems, and the worm appears to be able to permeate through routers which
would normally act as a gatekeeper.
The solution: Unplug the Windows machines from your network, update with
the appropriate security patch, and then run the removal tool. More
details can be seen at SlashDot.org:
(http://slashdot.org/articles/03/08/12/1326237.shtml?tid=185&tid=190&tid=201)
Patches can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site at:
(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/ms03-010.asp)
and the removal tool can be downloaded at:
(http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.html)
Details are still evolving, but already this morning we’ve seen multiple
large, primarily Mac networks be seriously affected. Unplugging the
Windows machines from the network instantly brought them back up.
Good luck,
MacTech Magazine