Internet users in Taiwan should be prepared today for a possible third day of attacks by a computer worm that has prompted major delays from Asia to the US.
Anti-virus software maker Trend Micro Inc (
The company has given the "slammer" worm a high risk rating based on prevalence and potential damage.
Damage in Taiwan over the weekend was limited to some Internet companies offering 24-hour-a-day service but could spread when business resumes today.
"Saturday around noon, we received a virus notice from our US offices and at about the same time local officials noticed something wrong," said Wang Ying-ta (王應達), a Trend Micro manager in Taipei.
He added that several Internet companies called and reported their servers were nearly paralyzed and that users weren't able to connect to Web sites.
The nation's number one Internet service provider (ISP), state-run Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), was the worst hit, with millions of users unable to access its "Hinet" portal, the company said.
Chunghwa also manages servers for Chinese Gamer International Corp (
Chinese Gamer is one of the nation's largest online gaming companies, hosting quite a few popular games including Jin Yung Online (
According to Lee Yen-song (
Over the weekend, Trend Micro's technical support office in Taipei received nearly 30 calls regarding the slammer worm. Wang says his office is expecting more calls today when most companies resume their Internet operations.
"Since the virus attacked over the weekend, only companies offering 24-hour service noticed the damage in the first place," Wang said.
Meanwhile, officials in several other Asian countries also said they feared the worm may cause more problems today.
"We believe the problem is hiding, not fully resolved," South Korea's Information and Communication Minister Lee Sang-chul said yesterday.
Millions of South Korean Internet users were inconvenienced on Saturday when some computers at ISPs Korea Telecom Freetel and SK Telecom failed to function, halting or slowing Web browsing and e-mail services.
Lee said the disruption was caused by a so-called computer worm that created excessive Internet traffic, forcing domain servers to shut down in a chain reaction. He said most of the systems had been restored by noon yesterday.
Outages or slowdowns have been reported in Hong Kong, India, Thailand and Japan. The attack appeared to strike first in the US and spread quickly, hitting Asia especially hard.
Officials in the US said the attack sought out vulnerable computers on the Internet using a known flaw in popular software from Microsoft Corp called "Server."
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