Keynote Systems Incorporated, a company that monitors Internet traffic, have reported Internet visits to popular site such as Yahoo and Excite appear to be normal.
Yesterday, experts feared the worst of Code Red, which was due to unleash it's malicious attack at the turn of the month, last night. Despite no evidence of threat to the Internet, some experts believe the worst is still to come.
So what exactly is the Code Red Worm?
Code Red is a programme that searches the Web for vulnerable machines it can infect. The difference between a malicious programme and a virus is that Code Red does not need users to activate it. The worm simply copies itself onto the system. Once machines are infected they begin searching for uninfected machines. Also in many instances, it has been reported that the Web pages are replaced with text “Hacked by Chinese”.
The BBC news reports that millions of users have logged onto the Microsoft website and downloaded the free programme that protects machines from this worm. This may be the reason why the expected catastrophe has not occurred. It is possible that the worm has come to a dead end due to users sensibly protecting themselves. However this is far from a certainty and only time will tell the extent of the of the worms wrath.
