Sasser Worm Takes Down UK's Coastguard

jonman_d writes "The Sasser worm has recently disabled the computer systems of Britain's Coastguard. Naturally, this event raises even more doubts over the reliability of Microsoft software in critical systems. Moreover, it raises questions of responsibility: if the worm writer is caught, can he be held at least partially responsible for any deaths that occured during this outage?"

A nautical option

[FraggedSquid]

Possessing a long maritime tradition, here in the UK we could offer the writers a selection punishments [1] Keel Hauling from stem to stern [2] Flogging with a cat-o'-9 tails [3] Hanging (if the worm caused a fire in a naval dockyard) [4] Run the Gauntlet [5] Picking okum

Re:The real question is

[isorox]

The AA - To their members they're the fourth emergency service

Re:Oh come on, be a man

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the Democrat response. The Republican response is to capture the kid and put him Abu Ghraib prison camp and sodomize the bastard, while taking pictures which appropriately belong on goatse.cx. Then, to go after the house builder, find out what country s/he's from, and then start fingerprinting all its citizens, while also bombing it to dust, all in the name of democracy and freedom, while all the time wondering "Why do they hate us so much?"

Re:IT Staff: Also Criminals

[Anonymous Coward]

I hold that IT staff who are so unresponsible as to run an intrinsically insecure OS on a mission critical system are are much a bunch of criminals as the time-wasters who write viruses when they could be developing Free Software instead.

They *are* developing Free software. You get Sasser installed for free ;)

Re:Doesn't everything?

[AKnightCowboy]

and some clause in the Patriot Act
doesn't everything? seems to me that it get stretched more than a rubber band.

Questioning the intent of the Patriot Act falls under section 14 of the Patriot Act. I hope you don't have anything to hide terrorist, because the FBI are on their way.

Re:The real question is

[drsmithy]

MacOS X ships with *0* ports open.

So how do you remotely administer one of these machines ? Telekinesis ?

Re:Doesn't everything?

[spoonyfork]

and some clause in the Patriot Act doesn't everything?

seems to me that it get stretched more than a rubber band.

Why do you hate freedom?

Re:The real question is

[necrognome]

No, It just works. The ports open themselves automatically when they sense that another host wants to connect. :)

Re:Critical Services Should Use Hardened Systems

[Lumpy]

on the other side, through the past 7 years, the netware 4.X server hidden in the closet and forgotten until 2 years ago has ran and not had ONE problem in that entire time. no viruses, no hacks, no break ins no crashes no nothing but doing it's job.

I also like to mention it at every IT meeting when the windows guys are scrambling about the latest virus threat.

Hopefully!

[6Yankee]

Somebody needs their ass kicked over this one. Hopefully nobody dies as a result.

Dude, that would have to be one hell of an ass-kicking...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:The real question is

[Frogbert]

You don't, if you want to change the configuration you just pick it up, throw it out and buy a new one with the service enabled. Couldn't be more simple.