Bonum Certa Men Certa

British Universities Under Siege Because of Microsoft Windows, One Goes Offline



Summary: Despite the propaganda from Microsoft liars such as Rob Enderle, Windows Vista is proving to be a serious menace to massive operations which were foolish enough to permit its use

JIM Allchin, Gartner, Enderle and other familiar mouthpieces of Microsoft have all lied about Windows Vista being the most secure operating system ever.



Last year we learned that many British hospitals (e.g. [1, 2]) became victims of Conficker. It affected all versions of Windows. British academic institutions too are victims of Microsoft's shoddy products. Several hours ago everyone in the campus of Manchester University received the following E-mail:

Windows Vista – Virus Outbreak



Please be aware of a major virus outbreak effecting computers with the Windows Vista operating system. The virus can infect all computers that do not have the KB975517 patch installed. In order to ensure that you are not infected with this virus you will need check that you have operating system updates turned on, for information on how to do this please visit the Hornet official website;

[...]

Please can you make sure you follow the Hornet Security and Safe computing security steps

Security and Safe computing

We would also like to take this opportunity to reiterate the importance of making sure your computer is protected. It is important to ensure that you have followed the following security steps:

1. Keep your firewall turned on. Learn about firewalls.

2. Keep all your software and your operating system up-to-date. Learn about operating system updates.

3. Keep your antivirus software up to date. Learn about antivirus software.

4. Keep your antispyware technology up to date. Learn about antispyware technology.


According to The Register, Exeter University has just gone offline due to Windows malware:

The University of Exeter took the unusual step of temporarily taking its network down this week in response to a virulent virus outbreak.

Computers at the south west England university were taken offline on Monday for a clean-up in response to an unidentified malware outbreak, which has since been contained.

By Thursday the vast majority of the network was back up and running, according to the Uni's lastest status update. Exeter is the seat of learning for 15,000 students with three campuses, two in Exeter and a smaller facility in Cornwall.

David Allen, registrar and deputy chief executive of the university, told students and lecturers that taking the campus network offline was a necessary step in fighting the infection, which came in through "PCs running Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 2".


"Ah well," says Richard Rasker, "a complete university with 15,000 students on three campuses taken down for half a week ... Windows sure is great."

When approximately one in two Windows PCs is a zombie PC, the above is to be expected. E-mail too is suffering a great deal from Windows zombies and according to this new report from the UK, about 95% of E-mail gets spewed from Windows botnets.

ACCORDING TO ENISA, the European cyber security agency, only about 5 per cent of all emails are actually delivered to inboxes.


Regarding the above, one reader told us by E-mail: "Windows botnets are costing over a third of Europe's ISP each over a million dollars cleaning up after Bill's spam."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
 
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025