Computer security experts have warned that a new internet worm,
targeting Apache web servers hosted on various Linux platforms, has
peer-to-peer capabilities and could be used by the author to launch
denial of service attacks. Apache is the software used by more than
two-thirds of web site hosts.
According to reports, over 3,500 servers have already been
infected and are being used to attack other systems. Security firm
Symantec said in an advisory released on Saturday: “It is confirmed
through various sources that [the] worm is in the wild and actively
attacking other servers.“
It appears that the worm, which has been dubbed
linux.slapper.worm, exploits a security vulnerability in the
Apatche OpenSSL module to target Linux systems, including versions
of RedHat, Slackware, Debian, SuSE, and Mandrake, and copies itself
to other servers. Symantec has rated the potential danger as
“high”. Personal computers running Windows are not affected.
