SCO puts $250,000 bounty on the head of the Doom worm creator
Can SCO buy friends or will the $250k go uncollected
01-27-2004 6:14:50 PM CST -- Story by Ken Mingis for ComputerWorld.com


The SCO Group Inc. said today it is experiencing a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack apparently related to the Mydoom worm that first appeared yesterday. The company, which is embroiled in legal action against IBM over intellectual property rights related to its ownership of System V Unix code, said it is offering a reward of up to $250,000 "for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual or individuals responsible for creating the Mydoom virus." In a statement released late today, the company said it has been the target of several such DDOS attacks during the past 10 months. But the one now under way "is different and much more troubling, since it harms not just our company, but also damages the systems and productivity of a large number of other companies and organizations around the world," said SCO CEO Darl McBride in the statement. "The perpetrator of this virus is attacking SCO.

"We do not know the origins or reasons for this attack, although we have our suspicions," said McBride, who did not elaborate on what those suspicions are. "This is criminal activity and it must be stopped." The company also said it is working with U.S. law enforcement authorities, including the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI, to try to determine who might be involved in the attack. The Mydoom worm, also known as Novarg and Mimail.R, is a mass-mailing worm that arrives via e-mail as an attachment with one of several possible file extensions, including .bat, .cmd, .exe, .pif, .scr or .zip. When a user opens the attachment, his computer becomes infected. The worm is apparently designed to attack the company's Web site, www.sco.com, beginning on Feb. 1....continued.... Click here to read the full story at Computerworld

Hehehhe.. some quick thoughts on this... the Doom video game has three sequels and a fourth is in beta at this time. I hope that doesn't indicate there are three more versions of the Doom worm in the planning stages. And did you know that Doctor Doom is a Marvel Comics character said to be the most coolly calculating and dangerous super-villain. Oh... and as for SCO's reward... it didn't work for Bill Gates and it hasn't worked yet to catch Bin Laden.... oh well its good for the publicity....