Posted by Todd (64.34.202.197) on August 01, 2001 at 09:50:16:
In Reply to: server question posted by Gizi on July 31, 2001 at 17:27:16:
all isp's funnel your connection through servers (and routers, switches and a bunch of other geeky stuff)
The affected puters in this case are the servers themselves, not personal computers. If Code Red did unleash itself last night and begins worming through the internet, a couple of things will happen:
1. The internet will slow down due to the excess traffic Code Red creates.
2. Servers that are infected will display "Hacked by Chinese" or some other stupid message.
3. Code Red will bombard www.whitehouse.gov, resulting in a DoS (Denial of Service) attack - essentially crashing the White House site.
4. Tons of people will get really really mad and it's likely that an all out effort will be launched to track down the pimply-faced jerk who created Code Red.
New virus, worm and trojan horse code is being written (or more often modified) every day. Make sure you have a top quality anti-virus program (Norton Anti-Virus and McAfee are generally the top ranked) and make sure you keep them updated. You can set both to automatically check for updates in the background - you won't even notice when it happens. Do a manual update every time a major new virus hits the news.
If you have a cable or DSL connection, install a firewall. ZoneAlarm (www.zonealarm.com)has a great free one. It's pretty easy to use and doesn't cause a noticeable drop in performance on a reasonably current pc.
Finally, never open an email attachment unless you are expecting it from the sender. Most email virus automatically reads the address book of the infected computer and sends itself to everyone there, so you are most likely to get a virus from someone you know.