System administrators blame each other for spread of Slammer. (Virus Notes).A web poll of more than 200 business PC users, conducted by Sophos Anti-Virus Sophos Anti-Virus is an anti-virus, anti-spyware and HIPS software program by Sophos plc, which is aimed primarily at corporate environments. Centralised management is performed via Sophos Enterprise Console. It is believed to be the Anti-Virus used by Gmail[1]. , has revealed that most blame their fellow system administrators for the spread of the SQL SQL in full Structured Query Language. Computer programming language used for retrieving records or parts of records in databases and performing various calculations before displaying the results. Slammer A worm that caused a billion dollars worth of damage on the Internet on January 25, 2003. Slammer infected computers all over the Internet by generating random IP addresses and causing the computer's buffer to overflow with its own instructions that replicate itself and start the process internet worm (networking, security) Internet Worm - The November 1988 worm perpetrated by Robert T. Morris. The worm was a program which took advantage of bugs in the Sun Unix sendmail program, Vax programs, and other security loopholes to distribute itself to over 6000 computers on the which slowed down large sections of the internet, reportedly causing ATM machines in America to stop working and knocking large sections of the South Korean population off the web. 64 per cent of poll participants felt that system administrators who failed to keep their systems updated with the latest security patches had been most at fault for allowing Slammer to spread. 24 per cent blamed Microsoft for shipping buggy software, even though Microsoft warned system administrators of the security hole back in July 2002. The poll also revealed that many system administrators have not put in place a formal way of dealing with new security vulnerabilities as they are discovered, with 12 per cent relying on mainstream news reports to tell them about potential problems. Only 43 per cent of respondents said they had signed up for Microsoft's security vulnerability mailing list An automated e-mail system on the Internet, which is maintained by subject matter. There are thousands of such lists that reach millions of individuals and businesses. New users generally subscribe by sending an e-mail with the word "subscribe" in it and subsequently receive all new - the method Sophos recommends to companies who wish to keep informed of new vulnerabilities as soon as they are discovered. The full results of the poll are available at: www.sophos.com/haveyoursay |
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