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Cyber-Attack Suspect
Aired August 29, 2003 - 14:05 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: Has a worm invaded your computer lately? If so, federal authorities say an 18-year-old may have played a role. He is suspected of unleashing a version of the virus-like infection nearly three weeks ago.
CNN's technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg joining us now. He's been following this story ever since it happened -- Daniel.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, that's right.
Jeffrey Lee Parson, otherwise known as T-Kid -- that's his online name -- he is accused of creating a variant of this blaster worm that really began picking up speed and spreading in the last couple of weeks.
Now a variant, what that means, is he's not the original creator of the worm, but he's someone who took it and modified it, and in a sense, made it more destructive or more damaging, as it sent itself out online. It doesn't require anybody to click on an e-mail, something people might be familiar with in the past.
And he is accused of doing this, of writing this code. The FBI has been investigating him. They have seized a number of his computers, and they will be searching through that evidence, trying to pin down some more information.
We should also point out that he was -- part of this worm was what's called a denial of service attack that was aimed at Microsoft. Microsoft in a sense avoided that attack by taking the Web site off line. A denial of service attack means getting a whole bunch of computers that are infected, and aiming it at a particular Web site and try to overload it, and basically shutting it down and trying to take it off line. Microsoft avoided that not too long ago, and that's a big part of this particular worm that's going around -- Heidi.
COLLINS: So if he is the creator of just a variant of it, then obviously, the original creator still out there.
SIEBERG: Right, he is still out there. Now authorities do have a difficult time tracking down the creator of any of these worms or viruses, because they go to great lengths to cover up their identities. In this case, we were learning that it was someone who hosted a Web site that was created by Jeffrey Parson who turned him in. So, in this case, it was kind of an old-fashioned of discovering how he did it, rather than just a high-tech way of tracing it back. The creators of these worms and viruses that go around end up destroying evidence. It's hard to pin down exactly which computer they were at. They go to a lot of lengths to try and cover their tracks and hide themselves in the anonymity of the Internet, for sure.
COLLINS: All right, CNN's technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg.
Thanks so much, 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 - 14:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Has a worm invaded your computer lately? If so, federal authorities say an 18-year-old may have played a role. He is suspected of unleashing a version of the virus-like infection nearly three weeks ago.
CNN's technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg joining us now. He's been following this story ever since it happened -- Daniel.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Heidi, that's right.
Jeffrey Lee Parson, otherwise known as T-Kid -- that's his online name -- he is accused of creating a variant of this blaster worm that really began picking up speed and spreading in the last couple of weeks.
Now a variant, what that means, is he's not the original creator of the worm, but he's someone who took it and modified it, and in a sense, made it more destructive or more damaging, as it sent itself out online. It doesn't require anybody to click on an e-mail, something people might be familiar with in the past.
And he is accused of doing this, of writing this code. The FBI has been investigating him. They have seized a number of his computers, and they will be searching through that evidence, trying to pin down some more information.
We should also point out that he was -- part of this worm was what's called a denial of service attack that was aimed at Microsoft. Microsoft in a sense avoided that attack by taking the Web site off line. A denial of service attack means getting a whole bunch of computers that are infected, and aiming it at a particular Web site and try to overload it, and basically shutting it down and trying to take it off line. Microsoft avoided that not too long ago, and that's a big part of this particular worm that's going around -- Heidi.
COLLINS: So if he is the creator of just a variant of it, then obviously, the original creator still out there.
SIEBERG: Right, he is still out there. Now authorities do have a difficult time tracking down the creator of any of these worms or viruses, because they go to great lengths to cover up their identities. In this case, we were learning that it was someone who hosted a Web site that was created by Jeffrey Parson who turned him in. So, in this case, it was kind of an old-fashioned of discovering how he did it, rather than just a high-tech way of tracing it back. The creators of these worms and viruses that go around end up destroying evidence. It's hard to pin down exactly which computer they were at. They go to a lot of lengths to try and cover their tracks and hide themselves in the anonymity of the Internet, for sure.
COLLINS: All right, CNN's technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg.
Thanks so much, 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
