Pentagon shakes off Code Red threat, for now

NEWS Public access to US Defense Department websites was restored yesterday after the US government shored up its defences against the Code Red worm. A Penatagon spokeswoman told Reuters that the worm had "gone dormant" but noted that it was programmed to reappear at the beginning of each month. Although she admitted that a number of Pentagon computers had been infected by the self-propagating worm, there was no damage to classified or secure servers. The Code Red worm surfaced last week and quickly spread around the globe, infecting at least 300,000 sites. Security experts claim it is one of the fastest spreading worms in recent history.