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One of Santa

A few days ago, I saw a News.com story that really put me in the spirit of Christmas: “Dasher worm gallops onto the Net.” Dasher.B is a Windows-targeted worm that drops spying software on vulnerable PCs, and it’s spreading across the Internet. According to the story, “The Dasher.B worm exploits a flaw in Microsoft Windows …

Written By
Sonja Thompson
Sonja Thompson
Dec 21, 2005
1 minute read
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A few days ago, I saw a News.com story that really put me in the spirit of Christmas: “Dasher worm gallops onto the Net.”

Dasher.B is a Windows-targeted worm that drops spying software on vulnerable PCs, and it’s spreading across the Internet. According to the story, “The Dasher.B worm exploits a flaw in Microsoft Windows Distributed Transaction Coordinator, or MDTC.” The infected systems are prompted to connect to a remote computer for instructions, and then the worm downloads a malicious program that tracks keystrokes.

Do you think the name of this worm, considering it’s almost Christmas, is a coincidence? I think not! What about the “I love you” worm that plagued people’s Inboxes suspiciously close to Valentine’s Day? If I were you, I’d keep my eyes open for the following worms: Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph!
Sonja Thompson

My name is Sonja Thompson. I've worked for TechRepublic since October of 1999, starting with the enewsletter team, then with the Premium Products group (creating books and CDs), as well as programming some of the elements on the site. After leading the Tech News team on TR, I jumped at the opportunity to switch gears and try my hand at video editing, podcasts, and other forms of multimedia on the site. I'm currently the host of the Smartphones blog, plus I edit the TR Dojo video series.
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I graduated from the University of Louisville. Since then, I've also completed several technology related courses from SmartPlanet. My goal is to learn about the TR community, interact with members on the site, and hopefully encourage more people to participate - and more often.