The recent worm attack that hit thousands of MySQL installations reflects a growing trend in the malware world. This worm doesn't exploit a weakness in the MySQL code--it exploits lazy admins who could protect themselves with one simple step.

The MySQL worm, like many others, uses a brute-force attack to guess a target's root password. Far too often, it only needs one guess: the default password, which the admin never changed.

By Matt McKenzie at Linux Pipeline.

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