Code Red Internet Worm Disturbs Pentagon Networks - It's Ugly !
The reawakened ``Code Red'' worm disturbed the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s computer networks on Wednesday, and the main U.S. computer monitoring center predicted it would infect as many systems as it did in its first incarnation in July. ``The worm is an ugly thing,'' U.S. Army Major Barry Venable said in a telephone interview from Colorado Springs, where the U.S. military monitors its networks.
``Here at DoD (Department of Defense, we've observed several disturbances to our networks as a result of this thing working on the Internet, but we've seen no significant degradation to DoD yet,'' Venable said...
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Code Red surreptitiously infects computers running Windows NT or 2000 operating systems and Microsoft Corp.'s IIS Web server software and then makes infected machines scan the Internet for more victims.
It reawakened at 8 p.m. EDT on Tuesday after an 11-day dormant period. First recognized by Internet security watchdogs in mid-July, the time-linked worm reached its peak virulence on July 19 before shutting down on July 20. It is designed to resume multiplying on the first of the month.
The Defense Department, which operates hundreds of Web sites, had to temporarily shut down public access to them during the July onslaught of Code Red.
Venable would not elaborate on whether Wednesday's ''disturbances'' included slow operation or whether any systems were shut down, but said of Code Red, ``We will continue to evaluate the threat that it poses.''
The FBI (news - web sites)-led National Infrastructure Protection Center said in an online update: ``Based on preliminary analysis, we expect a level of worm activity comparable to the July 19 Code Red infection, which resulted in infection of over 250,000 systems. It should achieve that level of activity by this afternoon.''
WHITE HOUSE NOT AFFECTED
The White House, where the official Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov) was a target of the July version of Code Red, was not affected by this latest siege, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) told reporters.
``We have been monitoring it closely,'' Fleischer said. ``At this time there has been no impact on the White House.''
