[Am-info] Re: Virus-like attack hits web traffic

[Eric Bennett]

More consequences are trickling in, including disabling a 911 center. 
These are the sorts of things that, one assumes, will make people take
security more seriously:



http://www.msnbc.com/news/864184.asp?0cv=CB10

THE NATION'S LARGEST residential mortgage firm, Countrywide Financial
Corp., told customers who called Monday it was still suffering from the
attack. Its Web site, where customers usually can make payments and check
their loans, was closed most of Monday with a note about "emergency
maintenance." Countrywide predicted it would be early Tuesday before all
its computers were fully repaired and its systems validated for security,
spokesman Rick Simon said.

Police and fire dispatchers outside Seattle resorted to paper and pencil
for hours Saturday after the virus-like attack disrupted operations for the
911 center that serves two suburban police departments and at least 14 fire
departments. American Express Co. confirmed that customers couldn't reach
its Web site to check credit statements and account balances during parts
of the weekend. Perhaps most surprising, the attack prevented many
customers of Bank of America Corp., one of the largest U.S. banks, and some
large Canadian banks from withdrawing money from automatic teller machines
Saturday.

...

President Bush's No. 2 cyber-security adviser, Howard Schmidt, acknowledged
Monday that what he called "collateral damage" stunned even experts who
have warned about uncertain effects on the nation's most important
electronic systems from mass-scale Internet disruptions.

...

Schmidt said early reports suggested private ATM networks overlapped with
parts of the public Internet. Such design decisions were criticized as
"totally brain-dead" by Alex Yuriev of AOY LLC, a Philadelphia-based
consulting firm for banks and telecommunications companies.  Officials were
most concerned about risks that citizens might lose confidence in financial
networks.


-- 
Eric Bennett ( ericb@pobox.com ; http://www.pobox.com/~ericb )

A penny saved is a penny that will end up on your dresser,
slowly corroding and gathering dust with the other pennies.