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| SCO is offering a $250,000 bounty for the author
of the MyDoom worm |
The software company SCO has announced in a press release that
it is offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to the
successful arrest and conviction of the author of W32/MyDoom-A.
The MyDoom worm has spread widely across the internet, turning
infected computers into "zombies" that will attempt to launch a
distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against SCO's website
between 1 and 12 February.
The Utah-based company has recently been engaged in a heated war
of words with the open source community, after claiming that
versions of the Linux open source operating system use code and
intellectual property owned by SCO.
"Although MyDoom's author may be sympathetic to the open source
community's case and may have been the reason they targeted SCO,
responsible members of the community would never condone such
illegal activity," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant
for Sophos. "It is hoped that this reward may tempt the computer
underground into 'spilling the beans' about who might be
responsible for this latest attack on all users of the
internet."
"SCO is not the only victim of the worm. Innocent computer users
are being bombarded by malicious email, and having their
unprotected computers opened up to potential hacking. Even Mac
users who cannot be infected by this worm have reported receiving a
torrent of unwanted messages," continued Cluley.
This is not the first time SCO has suffered attacks via the
internet. According to Darl McBride, SCO's Chief Executive Officer,
"During the past ten months SCO has been the target of several DDOS
attacks. The perpetrator of this virus is attacking SCO, but
hurting many others at the same time."
Individuals with information about the people behind any worm or
virus should contact the appropriate computer crime authority in
their country. In any of Interpol's 181 member countries people
with information about virus writers can contact their Interpol
National Central Bureau or Interpol's international website.
In the USA, the FBI or Secret Service can be contacted via any
local field office.
Since SCO's announcement, Microsoft has offered a further $250,000 reward
for information about the author of W32/MyDoom-B.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.