LONDON (Reuters) – A rapidly spreading computer worm infested networks and bogged down Internet traffic across the globe on Saturday, crippling online services worldwide (news – security alert).
Called "Sapphire" or "SQL Slammer," the worm carries a self-regenerating mechanism that enables it to multiply quickly across the web, said Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at F-Secure, a Helsinki-based computer security firm.
"It is so good at replicating that it generates massive amounts of traffic that will slow down networks," Hypponen said. "The end user never sees it. They only experience the slowdown on the Net."
The effects of the network overload can clearly be seen in this graf from Matrix NetSystems:
network graph
Security experts blamed the worm for crashing almost all Internet services in South Korea alone.
(more…)
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