Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Paul Jones <pjones AT metalab.unc.edu>]

according to the Register at 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/26/google_mydoom_infection/

Google goes gimpy from MyDoom infection
By Ashlee Vance in Chicago (ashlee.vance at theregister.co.uk)
Published Monday 26th July 2004 20:23 GMT

A variant of the MyDoom worm this morning triggered an unfortunate mini 
denial of service attack on a number of search engines - most notably 
Google.

User reports have poured in to The Register noting that numerous searches 
have turned up nothing but error messages. Google is blaming MyDoom.O for 
the problem, saying the worm is using search engines to try and find 
e-mail addresses.

"Once the virus is started, it searched the users files for domain names," 
said (http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?isc=d46940064182f61f40ca333bc3c2f439) 
the Internet Storm Center. "Once it spotted a domain name (e.g. 
'@example.com', or in 'www.example.com'), it will search various search 
engines for valid e-mail addresses within these domains."

A number of news sites appear to have been hit by denial of service 
attacks of their own, as readers rushed to spread word of Google's gimpy 
condition. This is certainly not the backdrop Google desired for its IPO 
price (http://www.theregister.com/2004/07/26/google_prices_ipo/) 
announcement. Google plans to trade under the ticker symbol GOOG and is 
looking to make shares available at between $108 and $135 a share.

One Register reader also noticed unusual results coming from Google and 
Alta Vista on a particular search query. We're getting a Forbidden note on 
this Google search 
(http://www.google.com/search?q=returned+mail:+data+format+error+message.zip&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)
 
and a Gone note on this Alta Vista/Yahoo 
(http://www.altavista.com/web/results?q=returned+mail%3A+data+format+error+message.zip&kgs=0&kls=0)
 
search.

While users throughout the US, UK and France were affected by the search 
slowdowns, all appeared to be back up and running smoothly by the 
afternoon. Anti-virus vendors were busy updating their virus definitions 
to help deal with the problem. ®


==========================================================================
                             Paul Jones
 "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." Alasdair Gray
                    http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/
  pjones AT ibiblio.org   voice: (919) 962-7600     fax: (919) 962-8071
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