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Officials look to unearth Internet worm writers
San Francisco/London, Aug 22: They write menacing software with names like `Blaster,` `Welchia` and `Sobig` that worm around the Internet leaving destruction in their path, and on Thursday detectives and computer security firms were hot on their trail.
San Francisco/London, Aug 22: They write menacing software with names like "Blaster," "Welchia" and "Sobig" that worm around the Internet leaving destruction in their path, and on Thursday detectives and computer security firms were hot on their trail.
Computer virus writers have unleashed an unprecedented outbreak of computer worms this past week and while finding them will not be easy, experts generally believe they are ego-filled computing geeks out to impress others.
"Every major law enforcement agency is looking into this. At the end of the day, we want to prosecute," said a cyber crime investigator at the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, who asked to remain anonymous.
In the past two weeks, major computer infestations by Blaster, also called "LovSan," and Welchia, also dubbed "Nachi," have crawled through holes in computers using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. A third worm, Sobig.F worm, has spread via Microsoft e-mail programs.
The result is that hundreds of thousands of PCs worldwide have crashed and many computer networks have slowed to a crawl.
The full economic impact of this recent infestation may never be known, but the growing list of victims includes the U.S. Navy and Air Canada . Experts are calling this recent computer infestation, the most damaging worm outbreak yet.
To catch the suspects, investigators are piecing together suspect profiles from strings of computer code to try to trace their destination through a maze of Internet addresses.
This new group of worms is believed to be the work of different parties. The most perplexing may be the author of Welchia, a worm that tries to stop the Blaster worm.
Bureau Report
Computer virus writers have unleashed an unprecedented outbreak of computer worms this past week and while finding them will not be easy, experts generally believe they are ego-filled computing geeks out to impress others.
"Every major law enforcement agency is looking into this. At the end of the day, we want to prosecute," said a cyber crime investigator at the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, who asked to remain anonymous.
In the past two weeks, major computer infestations by Blaster, also called "LovSan," and Welchia, also dubbed "Nachi," have crawled through holes in computers using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. A third worm, Sobig.F worm, has spread via Microsoft e-mail programs.
The result is that hundreds of thousands of PCs worldwide have crashed and many computer networks have slowed to a crawl.
The full economic impact of this recent infestation may never be known, but the growing list of victims includes the U.S. Navy and Air Canada . Experts are calling this recent computer infestation, the most damaging worm outbreak yet.
To catch the suspects, investigators are piecing together suspect profiles from strings of computer code to try to trace their destination through a maze of Internet addresses.
This new group of worms is believed to be the work of different parties. The most perplexing may be the author of Welchia, a worm that tries to stop the Blaster worm.
Bureau Report