The bug is something commonly known as a "buffer overflow", which simply means you can send more characters to web server than it is capable of receiving. When a program receives characters it writes them to memory in a place called a buffer. If a poorly written program receives more characters than it is designed to handle, it will, under special conditions, cause extra characters to be executed with privileges.

To put it very simply, it was discovered that you could cause Indexing Service to "overflow it's buffers" and execute selected code as a privileged user. This allows a special hacker program (which is reported to have required all of a half hour to write) to gain control of a server.

You have to understand that buffer overflows are nothing new to world of computing. In fact, I am sure that first programmer is also first person to experience this condition. This is well known to competent quality control departments, programmers, designers and, of course, hackers.

To put it bluntly, buffer overflows should not occur in any program written by any programmer who has passed "programming 102". In addition, any quality assurance person who has taken "quality control 101" should be able to check for and spot problem from a mile away. All right already, so what is infamous Code Red worm?

Code Red is a clever little program which takes advantage of this gaping hole in Index Server. What program does is search for systems with flaw. It's easy to find those systems and Code Red is very good at it's job. So good, in fact, that in early August 2001 it is estimated that it infected over 300,000 machines!

Once worm finds a machine, it executes buffer overflow condition and causes itself to be installed on machine. Remember Wrath of Kahn movie where beetle with big pincers crawled into Checkov's ear? It's something like that.

Once bug got into his brain, oh sorry ... once worm has installed itself it does a number of different things depending upon day of month. Some days near beginning of a month it will search for new systems to infect. Towards middle worms will all launch an attack against Whitehouse web site. At end of month, all of these malicious little programs will sleep, waiting for next month.

Interestingly, Code Red worm has a couple of small flaws. First, it's attack is directed at a single IP address. Thus, during first waves of attacks in July Whitehouse "dodged bullet" by simply changing their address.

Second, worm only installs itself in memory. This means it's simply a matter of rebooting server to rid it of pesky infection. Of course, if you don't install patch (a fix to repair problem, conceptually like piece of rubber used to patch a hole in a tire), it's just a matter of time until your system gets infected again.

Naturally, a new worm called "Code Red II" worm has been reported in wild, and almost certainly does not include these flaws. Hopefully system administrators will comply and install their patches so their systems will not be assimilated into Code Red and Code Red II attacks.

- Very slow

- Data errors are common

- Specialized backup/restore software required.

- Attempting to restore on different tape drives or on different machines is likely to fail or to be extremely difficult. Tapes do not support random access, so restoring single files is a long and painful process.

Writeable CDs - I have found that writeable CDs are by far best option to use for backups. When you purchase media, you have choice of buying write-once disks (very cheap) or read-write disks (much more expensive). I like to mix and match - sometimes write-once is good (when I want to create a permanent archive of my data) and sometimes read-write is what I need.

I recommend writeable CD drives for following reasons:

- The media comes in two formats. Both formats are relatively cheap, especially when purchased in bulk.

- The error rate is low.

- The media will last a long time.

- You can store over 600 megabytes on each disk.

- The disks are easy to store. In fact, you can use same jewel cases and storage racks that you use for your audio CDs.

- If you write in compatible format, you can read CDs on any system with a CDROM drive.

- You can use same hardware and software to create audio CDs.

On other hand, some of disadvantages are:

- Writing is rather slow.

- The drives do require specialized drivers and cabling to be installed on your system.

Disk-To-Disk - Disk drives are becoming extraordinarily cheap. You can easily purchase 50 gigabyte drives for under $500 (and I've seen them much lower). One possible backup solution is to purchase a drive to match each of your other disk drives. For example, if you have a C and D drive, you could purchase two more disk drives and install them, making them E and F (or whatever).

The advantages of this scheme are:

- Disk-to-disk backup is very fast

- Data written from disk to disk tends to be very reliable.

- The data is easy to recover.

Disadvantages include:

- The data is still accessible from your system, which means viruses, hackers ad environmental disasters (such as a flood) can destroy your data.

One alternative to look at if you have a small network in your house is to get a network disk drive. These are available at $500 to $1,000 range and sit on network. You can backup and restore files from them easily and quickly.

Conclusions - So what do I recommend? Purchase a writeable CD drive and install it on your system (make sure it is compatible before you make your purchase). If you've got money, purchase a networked disk drive which is same size as all of your local disks put together. Why? The writeable CD unit allows you to create backups at will of many of your files. You can store these backups off-site, transfer files between, machines, and have a high expectation that data will still be good in five to ten years. The networked disk drive allows you to create full backups of your system quickly and easily while you are sleeping. This gives you complete recovery in event of a disaster.