Just the way enough analysts began to figure would be as the weekend approached, Microsoft ended up having no Blast(er) after all. The software empire avoided the worm's payload, a coordinated denial-of-service attack from thousands of infected computers against the company's Website where users can download Windows updates including the patch that stops Blaster.
The attacks were supposed to begin after midnight August 15, but Microsoft took down the page marked by the URL Blaster would have hit, the company told reporters after the weekend.
This doesn't mean Blaster is in the paster, by any means – the worm also crashes computers using Windows XP and Windows 2000, and Blaster is likely to continue spreading, though at far lower levels, until users download and install the patch that repairs the security flaw Blaster exploits.
And the worm continues yielding a further problem, Microsoft and other analysts emphasized as of August 18: two new versions making the cyberspace rounds, one of which includes a so-called back door Trojan horse program which exposes unsuspecting computers to remote attackers.
Blaster was believed to have infected at least 300,000 computers around the world since August 11, most of which were believed to be home personal computers rather than business machines.
