New "Slammer" Virus causes web packet loss Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting January 25, 2003 Don Burleson

computer worm today infested networks and bogged down Internet traffic across the globe, crippling online services in one of the world's most wired countries, South Korea.

Called "Slammer", the worm carries a self-regenerating mechanism that enables it to multiply quickly across the Internet, said Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at F-Secure, the Helsinki based computer security firm.

"It is so good at replicating that it generates massive amounts of traffic that will slow down networks," Hypponen said." The end user never sees it. They only experience the slowdown on the Net."

From Infoworld

A NEW WORM attacking a known vulnerability in Microsoft SQL 2000 Web servers that has been slowing down or halting Internet traffic worldwide could prove as tricky a nemesis as security foes 'Code Red' and 'Nimda,' according to firms tracking the outbreak.

Recovering from the worm is easy, security firms agree: Installing Microsoft Corp.'s recently released SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3 solves the problem. Some also recommend system administrators consider blocking traffic on port 1434 from unknown machines.

From Burleson

This new virus is overloading the web, resulting in huge amounts of packet loss, and lost communications for hundreds of Oracle-based systems.  Even though your server may have the patch, other infected web sites are acting as Denial of Service (DOS) agents, sending millions of packets of garbage over the web.

Regards,

    Don Burleson
    www.dba-oracle.com
    www.remote-dba.net

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