A brand new worm being called worm-rbot.cbq, or rbot.ebq, possibly related to Win.32.rbot.ebq, may be what brought Win2k computers across the United States to a screeching halt. Many however believe it is the Zotob worm, also known as Botzor.exe (but not Zobot!), ramping up over the past few days, which is responsible for the mass crashing. According to CNN, it is worm-rbot.ebq, but many others are confirming Zotob sightings. Whatever it is, it’s wreaking havoc.
While some Windows XP systems are being affected, the worm is primarily crashing Windows 2000 computers.
Symptoms include repeated shutting down and rebooting.
According to CNN, its own computers in its New York and Atlanta offices started crashing about about 5:00pm Eastern time. ABC news reports that its computers were hit at about 1:30pm Eastern time.
Said Lysa Myers of security company McAfee, “How it’s spreading is it’s looking for machines that are unpatched and running itself.” Johannes Ullrich of the Sans Institute explained “It scans network neighborhoods and tries to infect them, as well.”
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In Peoria, Illinois, there are reports that the worm took down the Caterpiller company, and Aunty has heard back-channel stories of companies with thousands of employees having to shut down as the worm got the better of their computer systems.
The worms are thought to be spreading primarily through infected laptops connecting to unsecure networks.
If it is Zotob, and for that matter even if it’s not, if you haven’t already, you should [Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead]!
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Heh. They laughed when they saw the machine tool system I installed at Cat Peoria used OS/2.