Security experts warned yesterday that crackers have succeeded in creating an exploit for the latest critical flaw with Microsoft?s RPC subsystem.

The flaw, disclosed last week, is similar to the vulnerability notoriously exploited by the Blaster worm. Now that exploit source code is available, the fear is that it is only a matter of time before a Blaster-like worm is released onto the Net.

Security experts at both iDefense and Counterpane Information Systems have verified the potential potency of the exploit against Win 2000 machines. Win XP systems, though vulnerable, could not be compromised via this particular attack tool, which nonetheless raises the threat level an extra notch.

Counterpane said the exploit (which it found on an underground Web site) opens an interface on vulnerable systems that would enable crackers to countermand the system and issue malicious commends.

Ken Dunham, an analyst at iDefense, said it is "highly likely" that malicious code based on the exploit would be released over the next few days.

So there's now even more reason to apply Microsoft security patch, or implement workarounds, as explained in detail in Microsoft's security advisory here. An advisory by security clearing house CERT can be found here. ®

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