Tag: worm
Tech Time Warp: Nimda worm slows traffic with multiple propagation methods
In this week’s Tech Time Warp, we look back to September 2001. While the world was reeling from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, hackers unleashed a new threat: a worm that could modify existing websites to trick users into downloading malware....
Tech Time Warp: The Kriz virus was no Kris Kringle
Even cybercriminals get into the holiday spirit. Over the years, network administrators have dealt with the likes of the CHRISTMA EXEC, the Father Christmas worm, and the Santy worm when they would have rather been drinking eggnog. In December 2000,...
Tech Time Warp: Koobface Worms Its Way Through Facebook
For this week’s Tech Time Warp, we’re going back to August 2008—when you were still juggling Facebook and MySpace profiles—unsuspecting social networkers found their machines infected by Koobface, a particularly nasty computer worm. Koobface (an anagram for Facebook) caught its victims...
Tech Time Warp: Another dark side to a P2P network
Leaving aside those pesky copyright concerns, the users of file-sharing peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as Napster, Gnutella, Limewire, and the like thought they had some pretty cool tools on their hands. But in addition to attracting the ire of the...
Tech Time Warp: The One-Two-Three Viral Punch of August 2003
August qualifies as the dog days of summer. It’s a good time to take it easy and use some PTO. But that’s not something the network administrators of 2003 could do, thanks to an onslaught of viruses. August 2003 brought...
Tech Time Warp: Father Christmas worm visits NASA
Even hackers get into the holiday spirit. The Santy worm brought unwelcome gifts in December 2004, and the CHRISTMA EXEC brought a charming ASCII tree to screens in 1987. On December 22, 1988, the Father Christmas worm traveled to NASA...
The Creeper and the Reaper make cybersecurity history
“I’M THE CREEPER. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.” This eerie message is the equivalent of “hello, world!” in cybersecurity history. In 1971, Bob Thomas, an engineer at BBN Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, developed the first computer worm, dubbed the “Creeper.”
Tech Time Warp: Klez.H virus confuses with spoofed emails
It is possible the creator of Klez was rather indecisive. The malware, which confounded computer users in the early 2000s, was all at once a virus, a worm, and a Trojan horse. Basically, Klez contained every trick in the hacker...
Tech Time Warp: Lessons learned from the Sadmind worm
On May 8, 2001, the CERT Division at Carnegie Mellon University issued an alert: A new worm was on the loose. The “sadmind/IIS worm” exploited well-known vulnerabilities in the Sun Microsystems’ Solaris operating system as well as Microsoft’s Internet Information...
Tech Time Warp: Bagle worm spreads through its simplicity
On Jan. 18, 2004, computer users were served a “bagle” that would ruin anyone’s appetite. Also known as the “Beagle” worm, Bagle does not refer to the popular breakfast food that it shares a pronunciation with, despite their different spellings....
