Malware Causing XP BSOD Confirms Microsoft

Microsoft Corp. has confirmed that the reason why some Windows systems unexpectedly rebooting after users attempted to install the latest security patch was a rootkit program. The malware was present on the affected systems which incidentally had altered the operating system kernel.

The Microsoft Security Response Centre (MSRC) has attributed the modifications made by the Alureon rootkit in the OS kernel as the primary cause behind the Windows system crash while installing the recent security update.

Quoting the same, Mike Reavey, director of the MSRC wrote in a blog post: “The restarts are the result of modifications the Alureon rootkit makes to Windows Kernel binaries, which places these systems in an unstable state”.

“In every investigated incident, we have not found quality issues with security update MS10-015”, he said while upholding the quality of the security patch.

The software giant asserted that it came to know about the rebooting problem, also known as Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) on 10th of January, just a day after the release of the patch, and it immediately stopped the distribution of the security patch via Automatic Updates.

As per the post on the MSRC blog, the issue only affects 32-bit systems, and it largely plagues Windows XP operating systems. Henceforth, the Redmond decided it will begin distributing the patch again for 64-bit system through Windows Updates.