'Code Red II' slows parts of the Net
"The network disruption is significant enough to warrant heightened awareness," cautioned the SANS Institute on Tuesday. The institute is a computer security think tank working with the FBI and other authorities to monitor assaults on the Internet. Since its debut Saturday, Code Red II has managed to infiltrate internal networks of Internet service providers and other major companies. The proliferating worm can flood nearby machines with enough traffic to force Web sites offline, Net authorities said.
"It's something we call collateral damage, but I don't mean that lightly," said Alan Pallers, director of research for the SANS Institute. "This thing creates traffic inside a subnet, creates traffic in addition to what comes in from the outside." "An awful lot of traffic is being sent, clogging the bandwidth. The worm has this magnifying effect" during attacks on internal networks, said Russ Cooper, owner and moderator of NTBugtraq, an electronic mailing list that discusses Windows security bugs....
'Code Red II' slows parts of the Net
By Richard Stenger CNN
(CNN) -- A new computer worm that leaves computers open to hijacking has caused sporadic outages and slowdowns on the Internet, anti-virus experts said Tuesday.
The bug, known as "Code Red II," could easily permit hackers to take control of hundreds of thousands of infected machines, according to Net security analysts.
The malicious code, which first scans computers on the nearby networks in search of new victims, has caused major headaches for some businesses with many connected machines.
Collateral damage not taken lightly
In Virginia, one regional ISP affiliated with Cox Interactive Media suffered service outages on Monday and Tuesday. Callers trying a customer service phone number were greeted with a taped recording saying service would be restored Wednesday.
Code Red II is a possible culprit for that and other sporadic outages, computer security experts said. Cox Interactive representatives did not return numerous phone calls.
CNN.
