nanog mailing list archives

Re: Hard data on network impact of the "Code Red" worm?


From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () research att com>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 10:16:22 -0400


In message <200107310341.WAA01723 () bluejay creighton edu>, Larry Sheldon writes:

On Mon, 30 July 2001, k claffy wrote:
so, 1 aug midnite GMT (tomorrow 17:00 in california),
codered goes back into 'spread' mode.
within a few hours, we'll have 100,000-300,000
globally infected machines again.

NTBUGTRAQ is carrying informatiion that says that is not right.

They say that currently extant copies of the thing will sleep forever,
or until the host is re-booted--at which time the thing ceases to exist.

There seems to be some disagreement about this point.  CERT, in fact,
notes that explicitly (http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-23.html).
They also claim that enough infected machines have their clocks set 
wrong that there may be a new outbreak tonight (EDT) -- that one 
strikes me as less plausible.

The hazard tomorrow is the introduction of new copies of the thing.


That hazard isn't specific to August 1.

                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb



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