VIRUS ALERT No.72 - Tuesday July 31st. 2001
DO NOT PANIC -- READ CAREFULLY and act as necessary !
A Very Real and Present Threat
to the Internet:
July 31 Deadline For Action
Summary: The Code Red Worm and mutations of the worm pose a continued and serious threat to Internet users. Immediate action is required to combat this threat. Users who have deployed software that is vulnerable to the worm (Microsoft IIS Versions 4.0 and 5.0) must install, if they have not done so already, a vital security patch.
How Big Is The Problem? On July 19, the Code Red worm infected more than 250,000 systems in just 9 hours. The worm scans the Internet, identifies vulnerable systems, and infects these systems by installing itself. Each newly installed worm joins all the others causing the rate of scanning to grow rapidly. This uncontrolled growth in scanning directly decreases the speed of the Internet and can cause sporadic but widespread outages among all types of systems. Code Red is likely to start spreading again on July 31st, 2001 8:00 PM EDT and has mutated so that it may be even more dangerous. This spread has the potential to disrupt business and personal use of the Internet for applications such as electronic commerce, email and entertainment.
Who Must Act? Every organization or person who has Windows NT or Windows 2000 systems AND the IIS web server software may be vulnerable. IIS is installed automatically for many applications. If you are not certain, follow the instructions to determine whether you are running IIS 4.0 or 5.0. If you are using Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me, there is no action that you need to take in response to this alert.
What To Do If You Are Vulnerable?
a. To rid your machine of the current worm, reboot your computer.
b. To protect your system from re-infection: Install the patch as
specified in the instructions.
The security bulletin that describes the patch and the vulnerability
it addresses is posted at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-033.asp
Because of the importance of this threat, this alert is being made
jointly by:
Microsoft
The National Infrastructure Protection Center
Federal Computer Incident Response Center (FedCIRC)
Information Technology Association of America (ITAA)
CERT Coordination Center
SANS Institute
Internet Security Systems
Internet Security Alliance
We thank you ALL for your kind votes which made this site FIRST in two categories.
A 10 vote = Very Good
A 1 vote = Waste of cyber Space !
ALL those sending emails of thanks are kindly requested to indicate whether these are for publication.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
ALL those who are receiving this advise
and in the "name" field they find 'FAILED' and a 6 or 8 digit figure
after it, should be advised that at least once, emails to that address
have been received back by us. As the list of subscribers now exceeds 100,000, and since this
is a free service, we kindly urge you to become a registered
subscriber to this service and ensure delivery by subscribing under
a reliable email address. WE REGRET THAT AS AFTER THIS ISSUE,
ALL ADDRESSES THAT ARE NOT DELIVERABLE WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE LIST.
DISCLAIMER:
The information in this bulletin is provided "AS IS" without warranty
of any kind. In no event shall we be liable for any damages whatsoever
including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, loss of business profits
or special damages.
PLEASE ADVISE ALL YOUR FRIENDS ON YOUR LIST
PLEASE ALSO NOTE THE FOLLOWING:
1) You are currently SUBSCRIBED to our mailing list
2) If you are receiving more than one copy of this warning please click here
3) If you DO NOT wish to receive anymore of these alerts, please click here
4) YOUR friends are also welcome to be on the VIRUS ALERT but an email has to be
sent to the Webmaster by themselves so that a record of all requests can be kept in case
somebody cries "SPAM" ! Simply click here
and send the email as it appears.
5)THIS IS A FREE SERVICE RUN IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST BY
6) ALSO PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT YOUR EMAIL WILL
NEVER BE SOLD, EXCHANGED OR IN ANYWAY WHATSOEVER DISCLOSED TO ANYBODY ELSE.
******
Fabian Brincat
Webmaster
Fabian Enterprises Ltd.
SEE PREVIOUS VIRUS ALERT
RETURN TO VIRUS ALERT MAIN INDEX
©ALL MATERIAL IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT LAWS AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WHATSOEVER WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE WEBMASTER.
310701/110904/061004
