Code Red, Nimda, and Slammer (also known as SQL Slammer) are three of the most well known computer worms in the relatively short history of computers. Well known not because of their creatively selected names, but because of the massive impact they had on a widely used Internet. They weren’t the first worms to threaten the fabric of the Internet, but they hit at a time when the Internet was becoming very popular. It was a time when it was beginning to be widely used not only by governments and educational institutions, but also by people, corporations and non-profit organizations alike for communications and business.
Everyone who commonly used a computer when these malicious worms hit the Internet will remember them. Not only did they take down a number of government, corporate, and educational networks, but some of those not directly affected voluntarily shut down their networks as a precaution. But how were these things so effective and wide-ranging? How...
