NIMDA VIRUS

Nimda

Another virus to riddle the Internet in 2001 was called Nimda. Its name is derived from ‘Admin’, the default sign in name for most databases, which is simply pronounced backwards to read Nimda.

According to TruSecure CTO Peter Tippett , it took only 22 minutes from the moment Nimda hit the Internet, before it became top on the list of reported attacks.

Nimda’s primary target was Internet servers, and although it could infect home PCs, it’s real aim was to bring Internet traffic to a standstill.

Similar to the Klez virus, Nimda was be transmitted by e-mail and created a back-door into the victims machine. The spread of the Nimda virus ate up many systems resources causing the network servers to crash. Just like the Code Red virus, Nimda quickly became a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.