Cluley said so few servers are vulnerable that a widespread attack is unlikely, but even a contained infection could cause Internet slowdowns and other problems. Security firms have discovered another variant of the Code Red worm that wreaked havoc on computer systems worldwide in the summer of 2001. However, it appears that measures taken in the wake of that attack may prevent the new virus from spreading or causing significant damage. Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) said it spotted the virus, which is termed CodeRed.F and also has been labeled Code Red III, on a small number of computer systems in Europe. The worm differs by just two bytes of information from the Code Red II virus first spotted in August 2001, just weeks after the original Code Red unleashed a slew of denial-of-service attacks that brought down or infected some 350,000 servers, including the one powering the White House Web site. Code Red was blamed for an estimated US$2 billion in damage and downtime to networks worldwide. Moderate Threat. Full Story
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