Code Red and the Internet Today

While most Internet users are becoming used to spam, banner ads, slow connections, viruses and other annoyances that come with the use of the Internet, few are prepared for the threat of an Internet moving at crawling speeds, or even worse, not moving at all. Code Red and its latest incarnation, Code Red II, posed that scenario as a possible reality in the last couple of months. But it was not that we could lose data, or have our personal information tampered with or exposed (even thought that is a possibility with the vulnerability that Code Red and Code Red II exploit) which created the concern that prompted the FBI, Microsoft and other groups to make a public statement about this issue. It was the fact that the worm could 'propagate and clog the Internet to a crawl'[1]. CNN carried a full-feature primetime news segment on Code Red and every major news broadcast did more than simply mention the issue on Monday August 30th 2001. Why? Because government officials 'feared that when the worm re-awoke it would spread rapidly scanning the Internet for unprotected servers and in the process flooding the Web with unwanted packets of data causing it to slow'[1]. [1]'Code Red wakes up with a whimper' - From NetworkWorld Fusion (http://www.nfusion.com/news/2001/0801codered.html)