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SoBig Virus Slowing Down Systems
Aired August 22, 2003 - 14:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: There's another nasty computer virus out there and it's big. Experts say the SoBig virus can spam you with more than 1,000 e-mails at one time.
CNN's Bill Tucker has more on the worm.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's so big and so fast, it briefly brought freight and commuter traffic in Washington, D.C., to a halt as CSX computer systems were infected.
It forced Air Canada to cancel and delay flights.
Computers at Lockheed Martin were slowed, as were the computers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yet, you can't see it, you can only know it was there or wanted to come in. It is the virus appropriately named SoBig.
JOS WHITE, MESSAGELABLS: This is the most severe e-mail virus that we've ever seen and at its peak one in every 17 e-mails that we were processing was a copy of the SoBig virus. So certainly, we haven't seen numbers like this before. So it is spreading at a very, very fast rate and the volumes are very, very high.
TUCKER: Internet service provider AOL says it scanned 40.5 million pieces of e-mail and found the SoBig virus in 23.2. So big, in fact, it accounted for 98 percent of all viruses found.
But get this, SoBig is not alone. There is the blaster worm, a.k.a. Lovesan and two viruses which purport to fix the blaster and they do, but they also clog up your computer.
Then there's SoBig, now in its sixth variant form, having been around since January.
And the newest is dumaru, which appears as an e-mail from Microsoft. It's not.
JEFF SCHILLER, NETWORK MANAGER, MIT: I'm not exactly sure who to blame here, OK? It is certainly the case that it's gone past the prank stage. I mean, there's real harm being caused, real dollars are being lost, real people are losing sleep. I'm sitting here slightly bleary eyed. I was up half the night.
It's not fun any more. The first one of these, OK, fine, that's cute. The next one, all right, sure, shame on me, but it's getting a little old.
TUCKER (on camera): The cost in terms of dollars, human capital and technology. The best advice, still the most obvious, update your anti-virus software at least once a week.
Bill Tucker, CNN, New York.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 22, 2003 - 14:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: There's another nasty computer virus out there and it's big. Experts say the SoBig virus can spam you with more than 1,000 e-mails at one time.
CNN's Bill Tucker has more on the worm.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's so big and so fast, it briefly brought freight and commuter traffic in Washington, D.C., to a halt as CSX computer systems were infected.
It forced Air Canada to cancel and delay flights.
Computers at Lockheed Martin were slowed, as were the computers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yet, you can't see it, you can only know it was there or wanted to come in. It is the virus appropriately named SoBig.
JOS WHITE, MESSAGELABLS: This is the most severe e-mail virus that we've ever seen and at its peak one in every 17 e-mails that we were processing was a copy of the SoBig virus. So certainly, we haven't seen numbers like this before. So it is spreading at a very, very fast rate and the volumes are very, very high.
TUCKER: Internet service provider AOL says it scanned 40.5 million pieces of e-mail and found the SoBig virus in 23.2. So big, in fact, it accounted for 98 percent of all viruses found.
But get this, SoBig is not alone. There is the blaster worm, a.k.a. Lovesan and two viruses which purport to fix the blaster and they do, but they also clog up your computer.
Then there's SoBig, now in its sixth variant form, having been around since January.
And the newest is dumaru, which appears as an e-mail from Microsoft. It's not.
JEFF SCHILLER, NETWORK MANAGER, MIT: I'm not exactly sure who to blame here, OK? It is certainly the case that it's gone past the prank stage. I mean, there's real harm being caused, real dollars are being lost, real people are losing sleep. I'm sitting here slightly bleary eyed. I was up half the night.
It's not fun any more. The first one of these, OK, fine, that's cute. The next one, all right, sure, shame on me, but it's getting a little old.
TUCKER (on camera): The cost in terms of dollars, human capital and technology. The best advice, still the most obvious, update your anti-virus software at least once a week.
Bill Tucker, CNN, New York.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
