Security companies have reported a serious flaw in Microsoft’s Windows NT 4 that could affect hundreds of sites supported on the technology. The detected failure affects the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and allows attackers to take remote control of the affected web servers.
THE update Microsoft’s monthly newsletter, in February, addressed security flaws in SMB, for other operating systems of the company, but does not include Windows NT, already at the end of its life cycle and therefore unsupported, so the exploited vulnerabilities remain.
Free system support ended at the end of last year, as a way to accelerate the migration of customers to newer technologies. Customers who have not yet made this migration have support available until 2006, but paid.
In the last security bulletin, Microsoft itself mentioned the importance and urgency of this migration, as a way to prevent a potential exposure to vulnerabilities, considering the architecture of NT4 obsolete.
It is estimated that Windows NT will still be used by 1.1 percent of active web servers, many of them supporting e-commerce projects or other potentially interesting businesses. hackers.
The SMB protocol allows computers to run Windows to share files and printers on a network. Once the flaw in the protocol is exploited, the attacker is able to install programs, view, modify or delete data and create new accounts.
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