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February 03, 2004

Alternate Explanation

Apparently SCO were taken by surprise when the virus attack hit early. The article explains:

The MyDoom attack trigger was set for 1609 GMT Sunday. But with so many computer clocks incorrectly set, the infected machines began firing off data requests at SCO.com hours earlier, Hypponen [research manager at Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure] said.

I have a far more plausible theory based on real support experience. There are people out there with computers who don't know what timezones are. They set the computers clock to the correct time but have no idea about setting anything else. They all ring up to complain at zone changes (daylight to normal and back again). I even remember one user (in Parramatta) who set his timezone to PMT (Pacific Mountain Time) because he figured the P was for Parramatta.

In a complete setback for mail management the article also states:

Security officials have warned computer users to delete suspicious e-mail messages that appear to come from Mail Administrator and other official-looking addresses that contains a file attachment.

I usually send the dead message back as an attachment when mail bounces. This will now be promptly deleted and ignored so that the bad email address continues to be used. Oh well, I just have to rely on the fact that most users won't even read that instruction - proof can be found in the size of the attack on SCO :-)

[Update: Mac Central has the following quote:

In a statement, SCO confirmed the attack, saying that requests sent to www.sco.com from Mydoom-infected computers were responsible for making its Web site "completely unavailable" Sunday. The company is working on "contingency plans" to deal with the DDoS problem, but would not have more information before Monday morning, SCO said.

That makes sense for a company like SCO. They knew it was coming but they plan to fix it "after" the event and they will let people know by posting details on a website that it no longer accessible. Smart move, NOT!. Just like the rest of the recent SCO moves.]

Posted by Ozguru at February 3, 2004 08:02 AM

Comments

Setting time is a snap, I use network settings: time.apple.com, nearest city, Phoenix. Apple does the rest. It is always right. Of course, that still wouldn't benefit SCO cause my Mac has no viruses to send. Sides which my .Mac account is good at stripping them before I even get the mail.

Posted by: mog at February 3, 2004 08:02 AM