Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Latest MyDoom Variant Gives Google Problems

Posted by simoniker on from the down-and-out dept.

Devil's BSD writes "It seems like the latest MyDoom worm variant has caused a bit of an Internet storm. Google, at this time (12:28 EDT), is returning 503 errors on all queries submitted from certain locations. The MyDoom variant searches the user's address book for email domains (i.e. @yahoo.com) and searches various engines (such as Google) for email addresses in that domain."

8 of 607 comments (clear)

  1. Shouldn't that be easy to fix? by ggvaidya · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If MyDoom uses certain search strings, you just dump all such searches? Worse case, just dump any search for anything which looks like an e-mail account?

  2. What a day to have problems! by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    CNN is on behind me, and they've been talking about nothing but Google's IPO. Seems like really bad timing for Google. :-(

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  3. My one permitted tin-foil hat question for today. by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 3, Insightful

    OK, so if Microsoft comes out with an antivirus product, what incentive do they have to immunize Windows-based computers against worms that attack their competitors? (i.e. Google vs MSN Search).

    --
    Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
  4. Re:My Doom? Oh My by polyp2000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's difficult to imagine that there are more instances of MyDoom querying google than actual people. That would indicate that this thing is riddled an absurdly enormous number of windows machines.

    Nick

    --
    Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
  5. The influence of Google in the world by Darth+Beto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm in Mexico and Google is still not working! It is amazing that we're so tied to Google that we forget the others search engines (in fact when I couldn't search into Google I thought "well I'll wait a couple of minutes" instead of using another search engine like Yahoo!)

    --
    Free iPods, no trick, no steal, (almost) no pain:
  6. Re:My Doom? Oh My by mangu · · Score: 3, Insightful
    this thing is riddled an absurdly enormous number of windows machines.


    Or maybe just that the infected machines are generating thousands of queries each. In these days of multi-GHz CPU's and broadband, it wouldn't take as many millions of machines to /. Google.

  7. This thread brings back memories by WormholeFiend · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I remember that old David Letterman tv joke ad that went something like Dave saying:
    "Imagine what the world would be like without television?"
    [TV static for 5 seconds then Dave comes back on]
    "Scary, wasn't it?"

    Now imagine the world without the Internet... +++NO CARRIER

  8. Re:Google is doing fine for regular searches... by mla_anderson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's base64 encoding but using a non-standard alphabet. Standard base64 doesn't have "-" or "_" IIRC.

    --
    Sig is on vacation