ST. PAUL, Minn. – An Internet shootout is going on between rival computer worm gangs this week, and major U.S. businesses got riddled in the crossfire, security experts said.
A computer worm dubbed Zotob infects computers using Microsoft’s Windows 2000 operating system that were not protected by a software patch Microsoft put out last week. Windows 2000 is used mostly by large businesses, and the Zotob outbreak is not as big a threat as 2003’s massive Blaster eruption, anti-virus vendors said Wednesday.
But Zotob went prime-time Tuesday when it crippled several major media companies, including CNN, ABC and the New York Times. ABC News said its reporters used electric typewriters to write their broadcasts when their computers shut down.
Security experts noticed a host of particularly aggressive new computer worms appeared this week from multiple sources.
When a worm from one source found a computer that was infected with a worm from another, it removed or disabled the rival worm in order to hijack the machine for itself, they said.
“There’s a dozen of these things going around and what’s interesting is they are fighting one another,” Cluely said. “We think each is controlled by a different gang.” There is no way to tell who is sending the worms, he said.
The gangs may be trying to assemble “zombie computers” that disable Web sites by overloading them with junk data or steal passwords, bank account numbers or other sensitive information in identity-theft schemes, security experts said.
Also, employees who work on laptops may bring the worm in on their machines behind their company’s firewall when they return to the office, he said.
The Zotob worm appeared Sunday, only four days after Microsoft Corp. warned of a security hole in Windows 2000.
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