DAMMAM, 16 August 2003 — The web worm which targeted the Windows operating system has wreaked havoc in the Eastern Province, with many Internet cafes shutting down their business for the day.
The worm hit across the world on Tuesday, triggering computer crashes and slowing web communications. The bug, dubbed Blaster and also known as LoveSan or MSBlaster carried a message for the chairman, Bill Gates.
It reads: “Billy Gates why do you make this possible? Stop making money and fix your software!!”
The computer virus hits Windows 2000 and Windows XP. According to IT industry experts in the Eastern Province, home users were the worst effected.
Saeed Al-Hilal, a Saudi journalist for a sports daily, had a tough time Wednesday when his computer kept restarting soon after he established Internet connection. “It was as if the whole system had gone crazy. I first thought that there was some problem with the hard disk but soon realized that it was a worm, and eventually I rectified the problem,” he told Arab News.
Mrs. Mitchell, a housewife living in the Aramco compound thought she was clever as she did not log on to the Web on Tuesday, the day the worm hit, but on Thursday she logged on and “I was not spared. As soon the connection was established my system shut down,” she said.
The owner of the Net Internet Cafe in Dammam also had a tough time as he started his day in the shop. “My whole system went berserk,” he said. But he felt the worm was spread with a good intention. “It will now force Microsoft to improve its programs so that such worms can’t effect the operating systems,” he said.
There were reports of system crashes and slowdown of computers from several businesses. “We couldn’t work all day because we had to fix the problem,” said the IT manager of a big corporation in Dammam.
Blaster is quite unique in that it does not spread via e-mails — it can simply travel through a normal Internet connection.
IT experts in the region advise users to visit http://www.microsoft.com/ms03-026.asp to download a patch.
