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"Witty" Worm Wrecks Computers

Posted by timothy on from the your-ruse-your-clever-trick dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A new Internet worm wriggled across the entire Internet in the span of a few hours Saturday morning to all computers running several recent versions of firewall software from Internet Security Systems, including BlackICE and RealSecure, according to this story at Washingtonpost.com. The flaw that Witty exploited was discovered Wednesday by eEye Digital Security. The worm overwrites data on the first few sectors of the victim's hard drive, making the machine virtually ubootable and potentially destroying much - if not all - of the victim's data." Update: 03/21 02:18 GMT by T : Reader Jeff Horning points out that eEye actually disovered the worm on the 8th of March, and came up with a fix the next day.

9 of 587 comments (clear)

  1. One question by slash-tard · · Score: 4, Funny

    How can we blame M$ for this?

    1. Re:One question by dicepackage · · Score: 4, Funny

      Or better yet blame SCO.

  2. Come on.... by karlm · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do you really expect us to believe more than ten people worldwide run Windows on their firewalls? ;-)

    --
    Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
  3. Now that's powerful by CGP314 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Most infected computers will have to be rebuilt from scratch unless their owners instead decide to buy new ones

    I didn't know worms were so powerful now that they could melt a computer into a pile of toxic sludge. : /


    -Colin

  4. Re:Stick to hardware routers and firewalls... by Frambooz · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Although they ain't perfect, at least they're not running on your computer. Yikes."

    People would be much better off with hardware versions of Internet Explorer and Outlook (Express) in that respect. Yikes.

    --
    No encryption can withstand the power of the Lucky Guess.
  5. This is a perfect time to promote the expression by Eudial · · Score: 5, Funny

    "FGTRGDI" (Feels good to run gnu/linux doesent it?)

    More cryptic acronyms to the people!

    --
    GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
  6. Avoiding Viruses and Trojans by RGautier · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now that you've got yourself a computer system at home, you'll want to protect it from the evils of the Internet. Because Operating Systems are chock full of holes just waiting to be exploited, you should, at a minimum, take the following steps... Step 1. Go out and buy a firewall product for your machine. Also pick up some virus protection software. Step 2. Ok, now install the firewall software... Oh......Damn It!

  7. Or if you prefer... by Big+Sean+O · · Score: 4, Funny

    Newspapers, magazines, letters, and stamps.

    How 1980s. Yikes.

    --
    My father is a blogger.
  8. Re:fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Worms? *rubs ass on carpet*

    Ahhhh~