Microsoft confirms rootkit cause of Windows XP blue screen of death

Microsoft has confirmed that a rootkit is responsible for the blue screen problems currently occurring with Windows XP following a recent update intended to fix a 17-year old security vulnerability in the virtual DOS machine. According to a post on Microsoft's Security Response Center blog, all of the affected systems were infected with the Alureon rootkit.

The company says that the rootkit made several modifications to the system's behaviour, which caused the systems to become unstable. It also determined that 64-bit systems are not affected. h-online.com