CODE RED - Cousin crimps AP

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Code Red Cousin Crimps AP

By D. IAN HOPPER The Associated Press

fter the original Code Red worm infected about 250,000 computers at its peak last week, its more malicious cousin caused sporadic Internet outages nationwide, including disruption of some Associated Press services.

The anti-virus company Symantec estimated that at least 1,000 servers had been infected, but few other firms would venture a guess.

Code Red II also leaves a "backdoor" open that a hacker can use to take over the infected computer.

A worm is different from a virus because it can spread on its own. Code Red II spreads much more quickly than the original Code Red.

The Code Red II worm caused AP's outage, knocking out Internet access for employees.

Telecommunications company Qwest reported spotty outages for users of its high-speed Internet service nationwide. Home cable modem systems in Virginia and New York have also had slow or no service this week due to the worm.

Qwest spokesman Chris Hardman said its users running Cisco's high-speed modems were affected. Some popular Cisco hardware is vulnerable to the Code Red worms, according to an advisory posted on the company's Web site.

Microsoft, whose software has the vulnerability that lets the Code Red worms attack, has itself been a victim. The company confirmed that some computers running Hotmail — the software giant's free e-mail service — were infected by one of the worms.

Motorola also shut down its corporate Web site and many of its Internet-related servers in response to an attack by Code Red II. The shutdown affected thousands of Motorola workers in Austin, Texas, who couldn't use their e-mail or gain access to work-related files hosted on many company servers.

Both versions of the Code Red worm attack just computers running Microsoft Windows NT or 2000 operating systems, with Internet Information Services installed. Microsoft offers a software patch to protect computers from infection.

Original Publication Date: 8/10/01

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2001


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