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Code Red II: Shells for the Taking
sigurdur writes "It seems there is a new and more malicious version of Code Red out there. This one seems to try and copy cmd.exe into a position where it is accesible to us all - the scripts directory. So far I have seen it reported on the intrusions-list at incidents.org where they also just put up a notice about this third generation Code Red worm." I still think sircam is more annoying since it affects every email user, and not primarily poorly administered websites. But imagine how much bandwidth Code Red and Sircam have wasted in the last few weeks?
Yes they should know better [...] but nothing would have happened if nobody had written this worm.
I agree absolutely; the writers of these worms deliberately caused a lot of people a lot of stress. There's no excuse for that. They're bastards. But that doesn't change the fact that the people at this ISP would have had no problem if they were competent at their jobs. It's their job to know how to deal with computers; they apparently do not. It's hard for me to be sympathetic.
and yes, they probably didn't keep their servers entirely up to date with the latest security updates
I was talking about the SirCam worm in particular here the one that you need to actually run yourself to get infected with. Missing a security patch is more understandable to me, although ideally people would be vigilant as well as running software that doesn't need to be patched so often.
Next thing the police tells me I'm to blame for the latest break in in my house because my door wasn't patched against the latest models crowbar.
Not to blame, but it's much easier for me to have sympathy for someone who's stuff is stolen despite good common sense than for someone who doesn't even lock the door when (s)he goes on vacation.
They just suffered a lot of damage because some jerk somewhere lacks a decent moral and ethical education.
and because they weren't at all cautious. There are plenty of people who had absolutely no problem with SirCam because they were smart enough not to open and run double-named attachments sent to them by a near-illiterate masquerading as someone they may vaguely know (the email addresses it gives aren't necessarily at all close acquaintances). I just don't understand how people in the computer industry could fall victim to SirCam.