Looks like Home users arnt the only dumb dumbs that use M$

[solarismka]

http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=85EB5719-50BD-458D-9E8D-3109781BEC4F

 

quote:Robert Thompson and Kevin Restivo, with files from Siri Agrell
CanWest News Service
ADVERTISEMENT

TORONTO -- A combination of a computer virus and an Internet worm jammed corporate networks across North America yesterday and caused huge delays at Canadian airports as Air Canada was forced to manually issue tickets.

The computer problems are the latest in a string of woes to hit the airline, which had to cancel flights last week after a massive power outage hit Ontario. Air Canada schedules about 1,300 flights a day.

"It's just one thing after another," Yngve Gardland said while waiting to board an Air Canada flight to Sweden. "I miss the old days when none of this used to happen."

Air Canada spokeswoman Laura Cooke said the worm caused delays, but insisted "the situation today is not like last Friday," when a backup generator failed, causing the airline to cancel hundreds of flights.

"Things are very slow, but things are working," she said. "The day is still evolving."

In an unusual chain of events, the worm that caused yesterday's problem, MSBlast.D or W32 Welchia, was actually attempting to fix a security breach in computers that use various versions of the Windows operating system and were struck by a worm last week.

But the "good worm" jammed networks as it attempted to download a patch to fix the software flaw.

"It is like trying to get on to a highway and everyone is trying to get on to it at the same time," said Sharon Ruckman, senior director of corporate security at Symantec Corp.

At the same time, a computer virus, called SoBig.F, attempted to infiltrate computer systems through an e-mail attachment.

While many corporations seemed to avoid yesterday's computer problems, security software firm Network Associates Inc. said it was aware of numerous Canadian government departments and large businesses that were hit by the worm.

Other companies said they had managed to contain the worm. A spokeswoman from CIBC said the bank had detected some intrusion in its computer systems, but it did not cause any major problems.

But at Air Canada, the worm wreaked havoc on its check-in systems and call centres. At Pearson International Airport in Toronto, lines of departing passengers snaked throughout the building as boarding passes were printed at another terminal and laid out on the floor behind checkout desks. Air Canada attendants, on their hands and knees and organized the passes alphabetically to process check-ins manually.

The Canadian arm of IBM Corp., which won a $1.4-billion contract to supply Air Canada with information technology operations in July 2001, could not provide an update on how long it would fix the problem.

"It's a top priority and we're trying to isolate the situation and fix it," IBM spokesman Mike Quinn said.
 

 :eek:    :rolleyes: