In a rare discussion about the severity of the Windows malware scourge, a Microsoft security official said businesses should consider investing in an automated process to wipe hard drives and reinstall operating systems as a practical way to recover from malware infestation.

“When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit,”

Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft said in a presentation at the InfoSec World conference here.

Offensive rootkits, which are used hide malware programs and maintain an undetectable presence on an infected machine, have become the weapon of choice for virus and spyware writers and, because they often use kernel hooks to avoid detection, Danseglio said IT administrators may never know if all traces of a rootkit have been successfully removed.

This comes as little surprise as more and more companies have begun to appreciate the virtue of wiping the computer clean and starting over again. Mainly as programs have become more incidious not to mention. However I have also been of the opinion that nothing can be made fool proof because sometimes fools can be so ingenious with the problems that they create.

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