Worms
A worm is a self-replicating program that does
not need to attach to a host program/file. Unlike
viruses, worms can execute themselves. Worms have
the ability to spread over a network and can initiate
massive and destructive attacks in a short period
of time.
One typical example of a massive attack is the
"SQL Sapphire Slammer (Sapphire)" that
occurred on 25 January 2003. The Sapphire exploited
an MS SQL Server or MSDE 2000 database engine
vulnerability. The weakness lays in an underlying
indexing service that Microsoft had released a
patch in 2002. It doubled in size every 8.5 seconds,
and infected more than 90 percent of vulnerable
hosts within 10 minutes. It eventually infected
at least 75,000 hosts and caused network outages
that resulted in:
Tips for Prevention
The Common Best
Practices
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