Internet Suffers A Worm That Hit Servers This Weekend

The Sapphire worm that hit servers running Microsoft SQL this weekend was a serious disruption for Internet users. In what might be described as the largest incident since the Code Red and the Nimda worms swamped servers in 2001, the Sapphire worm which also known as Slammer and SQLExp infected more than 120,000 computers and caused a lot of scrambling within many corporate networks. Reports indicate that many Internet service providers under siege from the worm for most of the weekend. What is most unique about this situation is that the worm exploited a six-month-old flaw in Microsoft SQL servers. Server patches must continue to be priority one in avoiding these types of situations and many IT shops still are failing to keep up with the patches in an effort to thwart these documented exploits.