Nation Appears Unhurt by Code Red VirusThere have been conflicting reports on whether China has been hit by the deadly "Code Red'' computer virus, which has reportedly wriggled through more than 200,000 computers worldwide during the last several days.The National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center said it has not received any reports of the virus in the country. "So far no Internet users in China have delivered reports to the information security authorities or asked us for help,'' said Zhang Jian, an official with the center. Zhang's center under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Security is responsible for confirming virus reports from computer users and testing anti-virus products. Most Beijing-based anti-virus software producers echoed Zhang's statement. "As far as I know, there is no Code Red occurring in China," said Wang Jiangmin, general manager of Beijing Jiangmin New Science Technology Co, Ltd., a leading provider of anti-virus software in China. But a spokesman at Microsoft's Beijing office said the company has heard reports of the worm in China and urged precaution measures to prevent attacks. "Our situation is not so serious as foreign countries, but we cannot ease off," said Gao Cao, media representative with Microsoft's Beijing office. The office said Friday it did not know the exact number of infected computers in China. Beijing-based Microsoft Service Center didn't confirm the reported infections. "We only received calls for help to detect and prevent the Code Red virus," said Majjie, an assistant at the service center. The Code Red worm and its mutations have posed a continuous and serious threat to Internet users and Microsoft urged immediate actions to combat this threat. Every organization and individual that uses Windows NT or Windows 2000 systems and IIS web server software may be vulnerable, according to Microsoft. "Users who have deployed software that is vulnerable to the worm (Microsoft IIS Versions 4.0 and 5.0) must install, if they have not done so already, a vital security patch," according to a "red alert" issued Friday jointly by Microsoft and US information security watchdogs. On July 19, the Code Red worm infected more than 250,000 systems in just nine hours. The worm scans the Internet, identifies vulnerable systems, and infects these systems by installing itself. It then floods the Internet with probes looking for additional machines to infect. The surge slows Internet service and overwhelms some websites. But Microsoft said users of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows XP RC1 or higher, and Windows .NET Server, need to take no action in response to this alert. Source: China Daily |
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