Large portions of the Internet today were extremely slow or completely inaccessible as a virus similar to Code Red attacked. The virus exploited security holes in Microsoft SQL server. The slowdown of the Internet arose from the agressive victim scanning of the virus, sending out thousands of probes each second. It has overwhelmed alot of backbones.

 

Update: It appears like Microsoft's own networks were hit hard by these attacks. Now they see first hand how insecure their products are.

 

Source: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/5030801.htm

Not a virus, but a single-pass worm.

 

This worm runs malicious code on servers and can be eradicated simply by rebooting.

 

 

http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/slowinternet.html

what's the difference between a virus and a worm then?

A virus infects a file or program and executes its own program when run, the intention invariably being to actively cripple software.

 

A worm is a standalone script or file that is intended to simply spread and executes as a system process, EG mails copies of itself to everyone in your address book, slowing down servers.

I thought microsoft used macs.

I was trying to create a hotmail account yesterday to demonstrate to LuTze how MSN had hidden the "you've completed your signup" link, making it appear you had to pay for passport accounts.

 

Needless to say MSN was running so slowly I couldn't be bothered.

 

We surmised they must be running the Passport system from SQL Server for Windows.