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Blaster Bust

Aired August 29, 2003 - 13:07   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: To another story now, a teenager is in custody in connection with a computer attack that frustrated hundreds of thousands of users a couple of weeks ago. One of them may have been you.
CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg joining us now with details on all this.

Hello, Daniel.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: To tell you off the top, I have a copy here of the affidavit and the arrest warrant for one Jeffrey Lee Parson. He is 18 years old, from a suburb of Minneapolis called Hopkins, and he is being charged with at least one count of intentionally causing and attempting to cause damage to a protected computer. The blaster worm started going out about a couple weeks ago, and he is accused of creating a variant of this worm. Now he's not the originator of it, but he's accused of creating a variant. In other words, he modified it in so way and made it more destructive or more damaging. The affidavit goes on to say that he is accused of infecting at least 7,000 computers and causing at least $5,000 in damage.

And this attack -- actually, part of this Blaster worm, was aimed at Microsoft. And they were, in a way, able to deflect some of the attack, because it is what's called a denial of service attack, meaning these computers that were affected were targeting or aimed at shutting down one of the Microsoft Web sites. They took that off-line before it was supposed to start, and they were able to avoid that attack in a sense. But he is scheduled to appear later today in Seattle to face these charges, and he has been arrested at this point -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Daniel, I have to ask you, what's a PC user to do at this moment? I mean, it really seems like PCs are becoming kind of labor-intensive.

SIEBERG: They are. You certainly have to stay vigilant in a lot of ways with your own PC and keeping up to date. In this particular case, with the Blaster worm, there's a patch available from Microsoft to close this hole. That's the first thing you need to do. That's at windowsupdate.com. Beyond that, updating your anti-virus software, your firewall software, depending on which company you prefer to go with, and that's what you need to do to stay vigilant as a PC user.

But of course, these viruses and e-mail worms -- or worms that go around, they change, there are variants, they morph, and the virus writers or creators, the worm writers, try to stay one step ahead of authorities. It's very difficult for authorities to trace back over the Internet and find somebody like Mr. Parson, because they go to great lengths to try and cover up their tracks, destroy evidence, and the Internet is so vast, and of course it's worldwide, so it makes it increasingly difficult to go after them. And in a legal sense, the laws have caught up in the last few years, but there's still a bit of gray area involved certainly.

COLLINS: I would certainly agree with you on that. All right, CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg. Thanks, Daniel.

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 29, 2003 - 13:07   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: To another story now, a teenager is in custody in connection with a computer attack that frustrated hundreds of thousands of users a couple of weeks ago. One of them may have been you.
CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg joining us now with details on all this.

Hello, Daniel.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: To tell you off the top, I have a copy here of the affidavit and the arrest warrant for one Jeffrey Lee Parson. He is 18 years old, from a suburb of Minneapolis called Hopkins, and he is being charged with at least one count of intentionally causing and attempting to cause damage to a protected computer. The blaster worm started going out about a couple weeks ago, and he is accused of creating a variant of this worm. Now he's not the originator of it, but he's accused of creating a variant. In other words, he modified it in so way and made it more destructive or more damaging. The affidavit goes on to say that he is accused of infecting at least 7,000 computers and causing at least $5,000 in damage.

And this attack -- actually, part of this Blaster worm, was aimed at Microsoft. And they were, in a way, able to deflect some of the attack, because it is what's called a denial of service attack, meaning these computers that were affected were targeting or aimed at shutting down one of the Microsoft Web sites. They took that off-line before it was supposed to start, and they were able to avoid that attack in a sense. But he is scheduled to appear later today in Seattle to face these charges, and he has been arrested at this point -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Daniel, I have to ask you, what's a PC user to do at this moment? I mean, it really seems like PCs are becoming kind of labor-intensive.

SIEBERG: They are. You certainly have to stay vigilant in a lot of ways with your own PC and keeping up to date. In this particular case, with the Blaster worm, there's a patch available from Microsoft to close this hole. That's the first thing you need to do. That's at windowsupdate.com. Beyond that, updating your anti-virus software, your firewall software, depending on which company you prefer to go with, and that's what you need to do to stay vigilant as a PC user.

But of course, these viruses and e-mail worms -- or worms that go around, they change, there are variants, they morph, and the virus writers or creators, the worm writers, try to stay one step ahead of authorities. It's very difficult for authorities to trace back over the Internet and find somebody like Mr. Parson, because they go to great lengths to try and cover up their tracks, destroy evidence, and the Internet is so vast, and of course it's worldwide, so it makes it increasingly difficult to go after them. And in a legal sense, the laws have caught up in the last few years, but there's still a bit of gray area involved certainly.

COLLINS: I would certainly agree with you on that. All right, CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg. Thanks, Daniel.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com