Its reach is impossible to measure precisely, but more than 3 million vulnerable machines may ultimately have been infected. : The inside story on the Conficker Worm at New Scientist.
posted by The Whelk on Jun 15, 2009 - 84 comments

Worms in your fresh fish? We've heard about them in sushi for years, but stories are on the rise of creeping condiments from supermarkets. The FAO says they're actually not uncommon though "worms are unsightly and consumers naturally object to their presence". One theory holds that they're on the rise due to cost-driven onshore processing. Icked-out consumers have been posting videos on YouTube 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, while others have sought solace in discussion forums. But the good news? Cook thoroughly and you'll be safe. Me, I'll be sticking to enchiladas.
posted by crapmatic on Oct 2, 2008 - 71 comments

If Bruce Schneier, the expert voice of security moderation, is "worried" than so am I. Since the beginning of the year Storm, an advanced, distributed worm network has been growing quietly as its authors tweak its social engineering attack. Now it seems that it is in place and waiting. Schneier's article. Digital Intelligence and Strategic Operations Group has been monitoring Storm for a year. OWL.
posted by shothotbot on Oct 15, 2007 - 89 comments

And we're off! Prime Minister John Howard has set the date for the Australian Federal election as November 24th, meaning we're up for a long six-week campaign. With Kevin Rudd leading the PM by between 16 to 18 points (depending on who you read) in recent opinion polls, this election seems the most likely to provide a change of Government since Howard was first elected 11 years ago. Antony Green's usual excellent election guide is up and running here, along with an excellent calculator which shows which seats are up for grabs dependent on a 2 party preferred swing. You might also want to check out the Vote-O-Matic, a fun but entirely disposable quiz which aims to help you decide who you'll vote for. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Oct 13, 2007 - 603 comments

Bigfoot? Meh. Real Pseudoscientists hunt the MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM! Watch out for its acid spit! And the electricity it shoots out of its eyeballs. Now, see Richard Freeman's tireless search for this mighty beast in "The Lair of the Red Worm". (Part 1)(Part 2) Flee for your lives!
posted by unreason on Jun 27, 2007 - 12 comments

Australia is home to the biggest worm in the world, the Giant Gippsland Earthworm - Megascolides australis. The next biggest is the Giant Palouse Earthworm - Driloleirus americanus from Oregon. Both [Gippsland, Palouse] are only classed as vulnerable in the threatened category of the IUCN Red List, simply because they are hard to count. This is despite the extreme measures taken to save some and to try and just find a live specimen of others.
posted by tellurian on Jun 13, 2007 - 25 comments

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the article about the flatworm with 230 penises and one vagina referenced (but unfortunately not linked) in this article about the in the amazing Earth, Sea and Sky exhibit which opened today as part of New Zealand's beautiful Te Ara Encyclopedia.
posted by If I Had An Anus on Jun 12, 2006 - 24 comments

A worm that builds a home inside the human body, lives there happily until breeding time, then begins a journey to emerge from the skin and find a body of water to lay its eggs in. Although this may very well be a pleasant journey for the worm, for the human, it's an excrutiating one. And so we begin The Tale of the Guinea Worm.
posted by Space Coyote on Jun 14, 2004 - 9 comments

New Phase for Sobig.f Expected to Hit Friday. Any . . . minute . . . now. . .
posted by archimago on Aug 22, 2003 - 37 comments

Microsoft = Megatarget. A new worm is rapidly spreading across the Internet, functioning like a massive DDOS attack and crippling ISPs in South Korea. It's host? Microsoft SQL server. (Get yor fix on, then reboot!) What impact will it have over here, I wonder...
posted by insomnia_lj on Jan 25, 2003 - 63 comments

Humorous experiance of a lady with Microsoft Technical Support Staff in relation to Klez worm.
posted by arnab on May 1, 2002 - 8 comments

Gartner Group recommends that IIS users look elsewhere for a better web server.
posted by vowe on Sep 21, 2001 - 8 comments

New worm doing the rounds. Great.
posted by nico on Sep 18, 2001 - 23 comments

How to anonymously get root access on a quarter million machines overnight In the past 24 hours the CodeRed II worm has been infecting IIS web servers with a speed equal to or greater than that of the original CodeRed. The original CodeRed infected what is thought to be all vulnerable machines, approximately 250,000 hosts, in under 24 hours. While CodeRed I was relatively harmless, CodeRed II installs a full Administrator-access back door shell that can be accessed via HTTP. This creates a very interesting situation, and with the techniques discussed in this paper opens a new potential door for mass system cracking.
posted by lagado on Aug 5, 2001 - 13 comments

I send you this file in order to have your advice. The Sircam worm is spreading at an unbelievable rate, with two interesting bonuses. First, it mass-mails itself to e-mail addresses located in browser cache files (so webloggers with e-mail addresses on their sites are vulnerable). Second, it infects and attaches a random document to the e-mail. If you're careful, this makes it the most entertaining worm yet. (More inside...)
posted by waxpancake on Jul 21, 2001 - 50 comments

Seeing weird things in your website logs today? This will explain it... Running IIS and haven't patched it in over a month? Go here. 13,000 servers have already been affected.
posted by machaus on Jul 19, 2001 - 37 comments

So, just what is this Filipino cracker's name, anyway?
posted by baylink on May 10, 2000 - 4 comments