FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 6, 2003
Imaginary Landscape weathers slammer worm without interruption
The recent computer worm cited for disrupting computer systems and ATMs
worldwide, had little or no effect on Imaginary Landscape clients.
The Federal Computer Incident Response Capability (FedCIRC) describes the worm as a "self-propagating malicious code that exploits a vulnerability in the Resolution Service of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Desktop Engine (MSDE) 2000. This worm is being referred to as the SQLSlammer, W32.Slammer, and Sapphire worm. The propagation of this malicious code has caused varied levels of network degradation across the Internet and the compromise of vulnerable machines." FedCIRC is the U.S. Government's main virus monitoring facility.
Only computers running the above Microsoft products were affected. Imaginary Landscape servers run UNIX operating systems and open source database applications which were immune to the attack.
"Because the worm was propogating at such a high rate, traffic across the entire Internet was slow, said Ken Stox, technology partner, "but we did not experience any down time as a result."
Other sites weren't so lucky. Reports indicate that 1,300 Bank of America ATMs were affected along with 900 U.S. Department of Defense systems and a host of other companies.
The Federal Computer Incident Response Capability (FedCIRC) describes the worm as a "self-propagating malicious code that exploits a vulnerability in the Resolution Service of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Desktop Engine (MSDE) 2000. This worm is being referred to as the SQLSlammer, W32.Slammer, and Sapphire worm. The propagation of this malicious code has caused varied levels of network degradation across the Internet and the compromise of vulnerable machines." FedCIRC is the U.S. Government's main virus monitoring facility.
Only computers running the above Microsoft products were affected. Imaginary Landscape servers run UNIX operating systems and open source database applications which were immune to the attack.
"Because the worm was propogating at such a high rate, traffic across the entire Internet was slow, said Ken Stox, technology partner, "but we did not experience any down time as a result."
Other sites weren't so lucky. Reports indicate that 1,300 Bank of America ATMs were affected along with 900 U.S. Department of Defense systems and a host of other companies.
