This is a security alert to users of Windows 2000 and some early versions of Microsoft XP (I suppose Windows XP without SP1 & SP2 installed). A new worm has been found on Tuesday, August 16, 2005, infected computer systems using Microsoft operating systems (OS). The worm shut down computers in the United States, Germany and Asia, even big companies like CNN, ABC and The New York Times were affected.

Quoted:
Lysa Myers, a virus researcher for the computer security firm McAfee, Inc., said the worm exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft’s plug-and-play service. “How it’s spreading is it’s looking for machines that are unpatched and running itself,” she said.

Symptoms of infection of this nasty worm include the repeated shutdown and rebooting of a computer, similar to the well known Blaster’s.

Microsoft has done their best to put a downloadable patch on its security homepage already at http://www.microsoft.com/security. If you have enabled automatic security update on your Windows 2000/XP machine, automatic security updates would have protected you by patching the system.