- - Hackers jam Microsoft's site - By Janet Kornblum - June 20, 1997, 2
p.m. PT - - update Hackers exploited a bug in Microsoft's (MSFT) - server -
software, jamming the company's Web site since - yesterday. - - The hackers
are apparently taking advantage of a bug in - Windows - NT 4.0 running
Microsoft's Internet Information Server - 3.0, in - which the entire site
is jammed by someone typing in a - specific - URL into a Web browser,
according to Mike Nash, director - of - marketing for Windows NT server. -
- Hackers sent Microsoft an email at about 4 p.m. PT - yesterday, - Nash
said. Microsoft engineers immediately developed a - patch - and are posting
it on their own site today by 5 p.m., he - added. - - "Hackers made us
aware of a problem that they had - identified," - Nash said. "It is
possible to develop a URL--a string of - characters in a browser--that
could cause interruption - of service - on a Web server." (The site
remained available through - an - alternative IP address.) - - Someone
identified as Todd Fast says on his site that he - inadvertently discovered
the bug "while examining the - parameters - of an URL Microsoft's Internet
Information Server (IIS) - would - accept without an error." - - "This is a
hugely embarrassing bug for Microsoft in my - opinion, - particularly since
they've just been lauded for pulling - ahead of - Netscape in the Web
server market," Fast wrote. "Knowing - that - anyone with a grudge and a
twitchy keyboard could shut - down - any of their customer's Web sites must
bear horribly on - their - collective conscience." - - Microsoft
representatives originally said that the - problem was - caused by busy
servers and that users should expect - delays - through the end of the
month. - - The problem was exacerbated by what Microsoft spokesman - Adam
Sohn called "phenomenal growth." - - In other words, not everyone who tries
to access the - site will get - onto it every time. The problem is
compounded by - Internet - routing jams and individual jams at Internet
service - providers, - Nash said. - - Those who were able to get to the
home page today were - greeted - with the following message: "We're
upgrading; our - apologies in - advance due to growth...Over the next few
weeks, some - users - may see some interruption in service. Read what's -
happening!" - - The "Read what's happening" had a link, presumably to a -
story, - but people had trouble getting to that link. - - The outage and
problems have angered some Web surfers - who - have been trying to get onto
the pages. Some, who - presumably - did not yet know the cause of the
outage, used the - problems to - criticize the company's Web server
software. "Maybe they - should - have bought Linux," one reader
sarcastically wrote to - CNET's - NEWS.COM. - - "They have so many bugs in
their software, so why use - it?," said - Ben Efros, a Webmaster who also
wrote in. "Microsoft is - just a - large company going nowhere on the
Internet." - - But others came to the defense of Microsoft, saying that -
despite - the bug, its server software was superior to others. -
Buahahaha!
-T
--It takes Microsoft 10 years to get rid of the mess when you boot, why should we believe that you can make Windows easy to program in only two years ?" - S.Jobs to Microsoft's J. Allchin
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