MSBlaster+Outage?

[sr71blackbird]

Not to sound like a conspiriacy nut like Bunny, but, I happen to work for a related aspect of a large utility company. I noticed that 2 days before, the MSBlaster virus/worm had hit our office comps, powering them up and down, knocking many offline. My bro works in another company, totally unrelated, but many hundreds of their comps were effected by it. Im just wondering, does anyone else think there may be a connection? :quest:


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[reeshy]

Are you hinting at a cyber-terrorist connection? Possible but I doubt it. There would have been some leak to its veracity. I'm sure somebody in the government thought about it though-that's what they get paid to do!!!!! I personally think it was just somebody's incompetance that got us into this mess...as usual!!!! Or we can just blame the damn Canucks!!!!!!

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[sr71blackbird]

Well, maybe not terrorism, Though I wouldnt doubt terrorists are taking notes, more like an accidental related effect of one by the other. When the worm hit our office it disrupted commerce, 2 days later the power grid collapses and effects ALL commerce. The timing was horrible, Im sure there were tranactions taking place, people taking cash from an ATM and buying and selling stock. It just seemed fishy to me since both affected my job.


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[Bill From Yorktown]

I used to think that they were smart enough to isolate the controlling machines from any email/internet pc's - but as sooo many people have their systems on NT/2000 now, and I heard a rumor that the isolation of the systems might not be all that secure.....

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[TheMojoPin]

People have seen too many James Bond films.

The only way REAL terrorists would manage to shut down the power is from the EMP caused by the nuke they set off.

Haven't we learned anything from the 20th century? Terrorists want to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Blacking out an entire city would leave them just as disorganized as the rest of us, and is just a HUGE risk that wouldn't really result in anything of lasting damage being done.

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[SatCam]

I heard that it's a possiblity it has to do with hackers.

And Mojo, he wasnt talking about arab terrorists, he was talking about some lonely computer geeks who decided to unleash a harmful virus. That is still terrorism.

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[TheMojoPin]

And Mojo, he wasnt talking about arab terrorists

Neither was I.

But still, I gotcha.

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2% << December boys got it BAD >> "You might tell some lies about the good times we've had/But I've kissed your mother twice...and now I'm working on your dad..."

[HBox]

And Mojo, he wasnt talking about arab terrorists, he was talking about some lonely computer geeks who decided to unleash a harmful virus

You all got it wrong. Here is who did it:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/down/download.html?file=/media/images/606/606_image_06.jpg

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[Se7en]

And Mojo, he wasnt talking about arab terrorists, he was talking about some lonely computer geeks who decided to unleash a harmful virus

You all got it wrong. Here is who did it:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/down/download.html?file=/media/images/606/606_image_06.jpg


SIMPSONS DID IT! SIMPSONS DID IT!

Simpsons, season 13
Papa's Got a Brand New Badge (DABF17 / SI-1317) 22 May 2002
Homer accidentally causes an electrical blackout in Springfield, and all of the citizens begin looting the town's businesses. Chief Wiggum is useless at restoring order, so Homer takes the law into his own hands and becomes a policeman. Joe Mantegna reprises his Fat Tony role yet again. Season Finale.


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<br>
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Is the Captain a member of the proud <b>2%</b>?

[HBox]

SIMPSONS DID IT! SIMPSONS DID IT!

That was nice. I really wish I could say I was so brilliant that I knew I set that up, but unfortunately I did not know.

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[sr71blackbird]

Not all terrorists are in the killing business, I wasnt suggesting they where behind it per se, but now that its out there.. Also, part of their agenda is to cripple our economy and that was certianly a blow to the economy, though short lived. As 9/11 was taking place, there was stocks bought and sold in airlines, insurance companys and the like, to help fund thir own operations. If they had jumped the gun and said this was terrorism, then they might have gone and shut down the airports again, and you remember how that effected the economy? It was interesting that they immediatly said it wasnt terrorism, and at the same time said its cause was unknown!
.......My post was basically to see if anyone had wondered if the virus/worm and the power grid collapse were related.


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This message was edited by sr71blackbird on 8-16-03 @ 10:29 PM

[Reephdweller]

You might be on to something, check out this story from Drudge's website...

COMPUTER WORM THWARTS POWER SYSTEM REPAIR IN CANADA
Tue Aug 19 2003 20:33:34 ET

TORONTO (CP) _ A computer worm designed to eliminate an earlier virus brought computer networks to a standstill Tuesday, hindering efforts in Ontario to recover from last week's power outage and forcing Air Canada to check passengers in manually across the country. Vancouver International Airport reported huge delays and long line ups in the international departures terminal as the virus slowed Air Canada's check-in computer system.

Air Canada spokeswoman Laura Cooke said the virus affected the airline's call centre in Toronto and check-in systems across the country.

``It is causing delays in processing customers at airports,'' she said.

The worm also slowed Ontario's efforts to repair the hydro system from last week's blackout.

``The system is under attack from the virus, and we've had more problems with this particular virus this afternoon than any other previous virus in Ontario,'' said Terry Young, a spokesman for the Ontario's Independent Electricity Market Operator.

Inside the terminal in Vancouver, passengers, some of whom have been stranded since the blackout-related problems of last Thursday, were frustrated.

``It's a nightmare,'' said one unidentified woman. ``The service is so bad; the management was so bad. The system is just a mess, just a mess. I had my luggage delivered to Toronto, I was told on Saturday, so I don't have anything.''

The worm targets computers running Windows 2000 and Windows XP and infected with the blaster worm. Once it De1etes the blaster worm, the computer attempts to download a patch of the Microsoft Upd@te site, installs the patch and reboots the computer.

It searches for active computers by sending a signal across the Internet, which results in significant increases in traffic.

Internet security firm Symantec identified over 600,000 computers on Tuesday afternoon that were affected by one of the two worms.

Telus, the country's second-biggest phone company, saw operations for 411 operators slowed as the worm infected a number of internal systems at the company, while Corus Entertainment's Web site was down until the company was able to clean up its system.

The worm snarled the network at the CBC, slowing the broadcaster's Web site.

The Blaster worm also affected some computers of Ontario's emergency response system dealing with the aftermath of last week's huge blackout across a swath of the province and eight U.S. states.

Dr. James Young, the Ontario commissioner of public safety, said the problem was ``making our job more difficult.''

Symantec assessed the worm a ``Level 4'' threat, the second-highest, due to reports of severe disruptions on internal networks.

``Despite its original intent, the W32.Welchia.Worm is an insidious worm that is preventing IT administrators from cleaning up after the W32.Blaster.Worm,'' Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec Security Response, said.

``The worm is swamping network systems with traffic and causing denial of service to critical servers with organizations.''

It was not known where either of the worms originated. However, blaster, also known as lovsan because of a note it left on vulnerable computers _ ``I just want to say LOVE YOU SAN!'' _ also carried a hidden message to taunt Microsoft's chairman: ``billy gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!''

Blaster exploited a flaw in most current versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system for personal computers, laptops and server computers. Although Microsoft posted a software patch to fix the flaw on July 16, many users failed to download the patch, leaving them vulnerable to the worm, which first started hitting computers around the world on Monday.

The worm caused computers to reboot frequently or disrupted browsing of the Internet. Last week, blaster forced Maryland's motor vehicle agency to close for the day an