5.26.2005

Anatomy of a worm

SecurityFocus.com

Okay, maybe this is a bit far afield of social science - it's an entry-level description of a serious worm attack that occurred last year.

I'm linking to it here, not just because I geek-out on this stuff, but because it reveals how we need to think differently about things like national security. See, the attack began from a single machine, and its first targets were vulnerable computers on a US military base.

It infected - and then erased - over 12K machines in just over an hour.

Remember how everyone got their undies in a bunch about Y2K? This is potentially far, far worse. Like a couple of parsecs mo' bad.

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