Security experts are analyzing the worm to determine where Windows worm Sasser might hit next.
“‘We don’t know yet, for example, if it attacks machines running on Windows XP Embedded, which runs ATM machines and cash registers. That would be disastrous for banks and retailers,’ said Raimund Genes, European president of security software firm Trend Micro,” Bernhard Warner reports for Reuters.
“In the space of three days, four variants have emerged, each capable of causing machines that run on Microsoft’s Windows operating systems XP, NT and 2000 to reboot without warning and knocking out some computer reservation systems. Victims include Goldman Sachs, Australia’s Westpac Bank and Finnish financial company Sampo. It has also hit about 300,000 computers at Germany’s Deutsche Post,” Warner reports.
“Staff were temporarily unable to issue cash over the counter as a result, German media reported, while a European Commission spokesman said Sasser hit 1,200 PCs Monday. ‘We had big problems yesterday,’ the EC spokesman said,” Warner reports. Full article here.
BBC News reports, “Taiwan’s national post office said 1,600 of its machines were hit by the virus which forced more than 400 of its 1200 branch offices to revert to pen and paper. The disruption left customers queuing in long lines at many of the company’s offices, according to television reports. Two Hong Kong government departments and some hospitals on the island were hit by the virus. In Australia Railcorp trains were halted apparently because a virus disrupted the radio systems and stopped drivers talking to signalmen. Also in Australia Westpac Bank staff were forced to use manual methods to record transactions as the virus made computers unusable. Two other banks reported infections. Finnish bancassurer Sampo said it had temporarily closed all its 130 branch offices as a precaution against Sasser. US airline Delta would not comment on reports that the virus caused disruption to its schedule.”
MacDailyNews Take: Computers running Apple’s Mac OS X are not affected by the Sasser worm. More information about how easy it is to add a Mac OS X machine to your computing arsenal here.
Seahawk: Re:” birdseed and all: unfortunately for as long as people *see* these events as computer viruses and computers lack of security, ie computers at large, they will never get rid of Windows. “Why change, with another OS we will be in the same deep shit, right?” WRONG, but they do not know it.”
Thanks, that may be the best picture of the virus issue that I have ever read.
How do we get that message to the right people? (Been asking that question for 10 years!)
kenh: as individuals one user at a time. In my field I count today 23 switchers, and happy ones. As user group we fought hard to have OS X officially supported now.
You cannot imagine the misconceptions we faced, sometimes based things as old as OS 7. Now even IT people are saying good things. Slow painful process.
Hard, you have to fight ignorance and the arrogance that comes with it. Not for feeble at hearts.
At large Apple should do it. And it start by saying “You want me to work? Get me a OS X machine. The Wintel? drop it in the garbage bin for what it is worth.” But that hard line not always can be adopted. I could not do it in my first years. Now I can be a real pain.
OK, if the Sasser causes a windoze computer to crash, how would anyone actually know that they have a virus? That’s meant to be a little bit sarcastic.
tread: not a joke, they don’t. PC users are used to slowdowns and BSDs and their expectations are so slow that those things are considered “things of computers”.
CNN and BBC news report your line (or variations of it) and seriously. They recommend to install sw to scan their system for viruses because “apart from making the PC reboot and slowdown in connections, Sasser does not do any harm so it is difficult to realize one is infected”.
ROFLMAO