Yesterday's Zotob Disaster, and what it means to the industry

[Pangloss]

Some good background in this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/16/AR2005081601700.html

That one might be subscription; if so, try this one:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/16/technology/computer_outages/

 

I have a funny feeling that this particular attack will have lasting implications, for two reasons:

 

1) It deeply affected the news media. One of the stories above quotes an admin as predicting that it will take weeks to repair the damage.

 

2) It underscores the problem of legacy OS installations.

 

Reportedly, this worm only affected Windows 2000 computers. What I think this event has uncovered is the vast number of computers that are way behind the upgrade curve. That issue (the reluctance of companies to upgrade to the latest operating system) is often discussed in the industry, but even so I think what we've seen here is a bit of a wake-up call. The problem is more serious than we realized. This is a reminder that older systems require just as much care and feeding as newer ones, if not more.

 

I think it's also more good (deserved) fodder for the pro-Linux crowd.