Code Red Prompts AT&T to Unplug Customer Web Sites

[Alfred Qaeda]

Is it a DDoS when a worm causes administrative DoS?  (firewalling,
enforcing
a previously non-enforced contract..)   If so, Code Red & Microsoft win
again.

Really too bad; a lot of the residential customers would not be running
IIS but something
else on other-than-NT systems.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010808/wr/tech_codered_att_dc_1.html

        Worms Prompt AT&T to Unplug Customer Web Sites

                        SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
                        To keep the spread of the Code
                        Red worms from slowing
                        down its cable Internet
                        network, AT&T Corp.
                        (NYSE:T - news) is blocking
                        access to Web servers that
                        residential customers are
                        running, a spokeswoman said
                        on Wednesday.

                        ``We are trying to protect our
        greater user population as a whole,'' said AT&T
        spokeswoman Sarah Eder. The company provides
        cable Internet access to 1.35 million residential
        customers, she said.

        By blocking incoming traffic to Web servers,
        AT&T is effectively shutting down the Web sites,
        which residential customers are not supposed to
        be operating anyway, Eder said.

        ``According to our official use policy, customers
        are not permitted to operate Web servers behind
        cable modems,'' she said.

        Commercial customers of AT&T's cable Internet
        service are not affected, she added.

        The Code Red worms spread through a hole in
        Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Information Server
        Web software running on Windows NT and 2000
        computers and then scan the Internet looking for
        new computers to infect.

        Code Red II, which surfaced on Saturday, leaves a
        ``back door'' on infected computers, making them
        vulnerable to future hacking.

        Code Red II also spreads more quickly, looking
        for computers in close proximity or the same
        network to infect rather than random computers
        on the Internet, like Code Red I does.

        This scanning of the local neighborhoods is
        slowing down cable modem networks, where
        subscribers share bandwidth.