Security experts have found an unconventional, nearly undetectable rootkit that has even successfully infected the latest beta version of Vista.

"Backdoor.Rustok.A", Symantec claims, is the "first born of the next generation of rootkits. It consists of a mix of old techniques and new ideas that when combined make a malware that is stealthy enough to remain undetected by many rootkit detectors commonly used (such as RootkitRevealer, Blacklight and IceSword)."

It even recognizes loaded rootkit scanners and changes behavior to avoid detection.

Symantec suspects that Rustock.A was created in Russia, and close inspection revealed what they suspect is a version string, leading to the conclusion that "we'll undoubtedly see new versions of this malware. So, the bar is raised again."

Read the full article here.

Source: Symantec

MTC Take:
Yikes!!! What will it take to convince people that the very backward compatibility of Vista leaves it susceptible to the same attacks that plague Windows?

And who's talking "Security through Obscurity" now? A lot of Mac naysayers are claiming that OS X has been virus-free because of its single-digit market share. If that's the case, why is Vista, which has not even been released yet, susceptible to this rootkit?

And I was thinking of installing Vista... *sigh*

Bad JP BAD! lol