By sharing information about software vulnerabilities through the group, agencies have been prepared for most attacks, McDonald said. This was especially true for MSBlaster. Although it infected more than 700,000 computers worldwide, according to industry security analysts, the federal government suffered . . .
By sharing information about software vulnerabilities through the group, agencies have been prepared for most attacks, McDonald said. This was especially true for MSBlaster. Although it infected more than 700,000 computers worldwide, according to industry security analysts, the federal government suffered few disruptions, McDonald said. At the Postal Service, for instance, the worm infected only 300 PCs out of 158,000, a USPS spokesman said. Other agencies also suffered some problems, but it did not shut down networks or systems across an agency.

The virus exploits a Microsoft Windows vulnerability in a Distributed Component Object Model interface that handles messages sent using Remote Procedure Call Port 135. It affected PCs running Windows 2000, XP, NT and Server 2003. MSBlaster caused computers to reboot frequently or interrupt users while browsing the Internet. After learning about the problem, Microsoft in July released a patch.

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