Windows systems that crashed during the latest Microsoft security update did so because they were infected with a rootkit program that made changes to the operating system kernel, Microsoft said on Wednesday.
"The restarts are the result of modifications the Alureon rootkit makes to Windows Kernel binaries, which places these systems in an unstable state," Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, wrote in a blog post. "In every investigated incident, we have not found quality issues with security update MS10-015."
The patch addresses a vulnerability in the 32-bit Windows kernel that could allow elevation of privilege that was disclosed in January.
For more on this story, see Malware crashed systems during Windows security updates on CNET News.
