The Witty worm targeted Windows servers running the BlackIce Defender firewall developed by Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems (iss.net). The company made a patch available for the flaw, which was discovered by research firm eEye Digital Security on March 8. The virus exploited those vulnerabilites and began spreading on March 19 shortly after the patch was made available.
According to BizReport, the worm disrupted service for thousands of Webhosting.net customers. Chief information officer Andrew Martin told BizReport that the worm completely destroyed four of Webhosting.net’s Windows-based servers, bringing down more than 1,000 Web sites for most of the weekend. Martin said the data was retrieved from back-up servers, but the infected machines had to be rebuilt from scratch.
