Microsoft Under Attack

Microsoft says malware causing blue screen crashes

Summary
Not by angry customers suing for damages after security breaches, or by governments breaking up monopolies, but by open source developers and security professionals accusing them of being obsessed by security.

A hard-to-detect rootkit may be causing Windows XP systems to crash following Microsoft's latest security updates. Windows users began flooding Windows support forums this week, saying that their computers had been rendered unusable with a blue-screen-of-death (BSOD) error after installing Microsoft's February security updates, released Tuesday. On Thursday, Microsoft stopped shipping the MS10-015 update, which had been linked to the issue, and said it was investigating.

On Friday, Microsoft offered a preliminary conclusion, saying that malicious software may be to blame. "Malware on the system can cause the behavior," wrote Microsoft spokesman Jerry Bryant on a company blog. "We are not yet ruling out other potential causes at this time and are still investigating."

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