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Virus Overwhelms Global Internet Systems

No, it wasn't neowin down this time. It was the whole Internet!!

The virus-like attack, which began about 12:30 a.m. EST, sought out vulnerable computers on the Internet to infect using a known flaw in popular database software from Microsoft Corp. called "SQL Server 2000." The attacking software was scanning for victim computers so randomly and so aggressively, sending out thousands of probes a second, that it saturated many Internet data pipelines.

The FBI was searching for the origin of the attack, which experts variously dubbed "sapphire," "slammer" or "SQ hell." Some security researchers noted that software unleashed in Saturday's attack bore striking resemblance to blueprints for computer code published weeks ago on a Chinese hacking Web site by a virus author known as "Lion." An FBI spokesman said he couldn't confirm that.

News source: Yahoo! News

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