The famous virus that affected the entire IT industry was first noticed on August 11, 2003. This virus posed a threat to all Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems such as Windows Xp and Windows 2000. One month after Before it was noticed, the worm had spread like wildfire involving many home users. Chaos engulfed all Desktop users and they ran for help and support from Microsoft.

This worm was meant to attack the Windows update site and Microsoft, immediately taking notice, shut down most of its servers for the Windows update site. The port attacked by this worm was port 80. This virus had attached strings and messages that were a clear warning to the president of Microsoft.

Bill Gates. Until the time when any antivirus or Microsoft could release a patch, people called the help lines. All help lines had a call response time of around 90 minutes. HP support, Dell support, Microsoft support, and third-party support companies were already running out of manpower to respond to affected customer inquiries.

This worm used to attack a computer by shutting down some critical Microsoft services, which in turn shut down the computer. The affected Windows services were RPC (Remote Procedure Call). The failure mode of this service allowed a computer to shut down. A very common message was displayed on all affected computers.

This system is shutting down. Save all work in progress and log out. Any unsaved changes will be lost. This shutdown was initiated by NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM

Time before shutdown: 00:60

Message:

Windows now needs to be restarted because the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service terminated unexpectedly.

In the initial days of its release, technical support engineers had no idea how they would troubleshoot the Blaster. But later a certain mechanism was developed that would prevent the shutdown of the computer.

Later, Norton and Microsoft research and development took certain steps to prevent the virus from shutting down the computer. These steps included disabling service failure mode to take no action instead of restarting the computer. Microsoft support, HP support, Dell support, and third-party support providers directed the customer to the Microsoft website to download the removal tool or to the Norton website for the removal tool.

Microsoft’s online help, Windows Help also provided steps to remove the virus. But until the time the tool was developed, the Windows XP operating system was already at risk due to its security issues. The later version of Service Pack 2 fixed most of the concerns of end users.

The person who developed and spread the virus was later traced to Jeffrey Lee Parson, an 18-year-old boy from Hopkins, USA, who was later sentenced to 18 months in prison.