Up to 20% of the internet vulnerable

March 25, 2001 5:27 PM

Up to 20% of the internet vulnerable to a virus. There is a new Linux worm virus. Apparently, it steals passwords, installs and hides other hacking tools on infected systems, and then uses those systems to seek other servers to attack. Sys admins are advised to run a check on their servers and upgrade their BIND version.
posted by borgle (3 comments total)

How is this anything to do with Linux... that they run BIND? The numbers affected are big, but BIND has a fresh mouldy hole found each day.

I've been much happier since switching to DJB-DNS (Intro)
posted by holloway at 5:41 PM on March 25, 2001

First of all, where the crack is that 20% coming from? No, 20% of the internet is *not* running a vulnerable version of BIND... The wording in the article makes me believe they *might* mean that 20% of all BIND installs are vulnerable. That isn't nearly as worrying.

holloway, I believe its main code is a binary executable, which is probably linux-specific. It might work on another OS with linux-compatability, though.

more info
posted by whatnotever at 8:52 PM on March 25, 2001

I was referring to the worm itself, not BIND. The worm is an executable, I believe, so it won't spread to other OSes very easily.
posted by whatnotever at 1:28 PM on March 26, 2001