Global virus attack clogs up internet

Traffic on the many parts of the internet slowed dramatically yesterday, the apparent effects of a fast-spreading, virus-like infection in the world's digital pipelines that interfered with web browsing and delivery of email.

Users and news media reported outages or slowdowns in Asia before problems spread to Europe and on to the US. Experts said the latest electronic attack bore remarkable similarities to the "Code Red" virus in 2001 which also brought traffic to a halt on much of the net.

The attack sought out vulnerable computers to infect using a known flaw in the popular database package from software giant Microsoft, called SQL Server – the company later offered a free repairing patch. The attacking code was scanning for victim computers so randomly and so aggressively – sending out thousands of probes each second – that it overwhelmed many internet data pipelines.

"The sheer number of attacks is eating up so much bandwidth that normal operations can't take place," said Marc Maiffre, of eEye Digital Security, whose engineers were among the earliest to study the attack software.

Howard Schmidt, one of President Bush's top cyber-security advisers, said the problem was under control, but, in a remark clearly aimed at Microsoft, added: "People need to do a better job about fixing vulnerabilities."