Slammer Worm Hits Major US Auto Manufacturer

At 5pm on Saturday, June 25, 2003 a major US auto manufacturer was hit with the Slammer worm.  A SQL patch had been available for approximately 6 months but had not been applied to the manufacturers systems.  The worm spread very quickly, ultimately affecting 17 of the manufacturer’s plants.  The event lasted for approximately 8 hours before it was contained.  Limited infrastructure firewalls did nothing to prevent the spread.  Ultimately, IT was forced to detach the unprotected telecom infrastructure which appeared to be the primary mode of spread between plants.

17 manufacturing plants affected.  More than 1,000 computers had to be “rebuilt”.  Event was estimated to cost the company $150 Million USD.