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American Morning

Code Red Computer Worm Goes Active

Aired August 01, 2001 - 10:01   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: And in the computer world, the worm has turned and flashing on the Internet. Just minutes ago, the FBI announced that the Internet predator code red worm is now active and brewing into the World Wide Web. That can mean slowdowns or even shut downs on some Internet activity.

Joining us to explain the potential impact is CNN.com's technology editor, Daniel Sieberg -- what are we seeing now, Dan?

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY EDITOR: Good morning, Donna.

Well, right now what we're seeing is a warning or a statement that's come out from the government saying that they have seen some exploitations, they've seen some occurrences of this worm starting to spread. They're still continuing to analyze it. It's very early on in the stages of this particular worm. Again, it just started sending itself out and replicating itself last night so it's got some ways to go.

They are going to be analyzing it throughout the day, in fact, probably for the next several days to see what sort of impact it has on the Internet.

KELLEY: And Daniel, we were talking about this before, you're going to have to watch for a couple of days, aren't you?

SIEBERG: Well, that's exactly right. Just like with the last time it had its spawning period or when it started to send itself out, there's several days where it needs to be analyzed and assessed. The full impact on the Internet may not be known for some time.

For example, users today who log onto the Internet may not notice anything right away. Their sites may not be slowed down. They may not notice any sites being hacked or anything like that. And again, home PC users are not going to be affected by this. They're not going to be infected by this particular worm. It's the Internet traffic in general that could be slowed down and affected by this worm, code red.

KELLEY: OK, Daniel Sieberg, who is our Internet guy from CNN.com, thank you.

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