WAR OF THE WORMS

Which is worse: a “bad” worm, designed by hackers, or a “good” one, created by security companies to squish the nasty infection?
The answer, according to the Washington Post, is unclear.

A computer worm designed to protect against another infection brought down some computer networks yesterday and infiltrated others, including that of Air Canada and the $6.9 billion U.S. Navy-Marine Corps intranet.
The “Welchia” worm attempts to remove the worm of last week, known as “Blaster,” but dramatically slows networks. If it is successful in deleting Blaster, the new worm attempts to download and install a patch from the Microsoft update site and reboots the computer.
Symantec Corp., an Internet security company, designated the worm a “Level 4″ threat — the second-highest — because of reports of severe disruptions on corporate networks. Unlike a virus, a worm doesn’t require a program or file to latch onto in order to disseminate.

Wired News has more.

August 20th, 2003 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.