Security news
Security news27 January 2004
MyDoom worm: the latest weapon in the Linux wars? Sophos comments
Virus researchers at Sophos are suggesting that the W32/MyDoom-A worm, currently spreading widely across the internet, may have been deliberately constructed as a weapon in the current round of "Linux wars". The worm launches a distributed denial of service attack against the website of SCO, who have recently courted controversy in the Linux community. Such an attack could potentially knock SCO's website off the internet.
In May 2003 US-based SCO claimed that versions of the Linux open source operating system use code owned by SCO. It has begun offering Linux users a licence to protect them against possible legal action. Leading Linux developers such as Linus Torvalds, the inventor of Linux, have denied that Linux source code contains any SCO intellectual property. SCO has also launched legal actions against IBM, Red Hat, and Novell.
"Rows between SCO and the open source community have been continuing for some months. The MyDoom worm takes the Linux Wars to a new intensity," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "It appears that the author of MyDoom may have taken the war of words from the courtrooms and internet message boards to a new level by unleashing this worm which attacks SCO's website. If we ever get our hands on MyDoom's creator my guess is that he will be an open source sympathiser. Of course, it's the last kind of assistance the open source community would want at this time."
Once the MyDoom worm has infected a PC it attempts to spread via mass-emailing, and turns the computer into a "zombie" which can unwittingly launch the attack against SCO's website between 1 and 12 February.
"All computer users should ensure their computers are adequately protected against these kind of attacks with updated anti-virus and firewall software," continued Cluley.
