And that wasn't anywhere near the end of it. Reports from around the world indicate that Sasser struck viciously at some locations, mildly at others.
Westpac, a major Australian bank, was hit by Sasser starting Tuesday, according to reports in several of the country's newspapers. In some cases, branches had to abandon their PCs and revert to pen and paper to complete transactions, and later in the week, the infection spread to branches in neighboring New Zealand. By Thursday, Westpac had cleaned up the mess and its branches were back to electronics.
Elsewhere in the Pacific Rim, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and even technologically-backward Vietnam, were struck by the worm. In Taiwan, one of the countries hit hardest early in the worm's rampage, some 1,600 computers in its postal service were infected, forcing about a third of the branches to move to paper. In Hong Kong, Sasser sneaked into government networks. Problems in both Taiwan and Hong Kong had been cleared up by Tuesday.
Other Asian countries, such as Japan and India, reported few problems. But the Chosen Ilbo news service in Korea -- which often bears the brunt of any wide-ranging worm because it boasts the world's highest per-capita use of DSL-based broadband connections to the Internet -- reported that one of the country's largest hospitals experienced delays dealing with patients because the computer system had to be ditched for paper on Monday.
China, however, largely escaped the Sasser worm -- for now -- because of a seven-day national holiday that ends Saturday. According to the Xinhau news service, Sasser is expected to impact Chinese businesses and government agencies because patches weren't deployed during the time off.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
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