CricketMX.com

This was brought to my attention by a friend today..and thought was interesting reading...

The worm, dubbed Santy.A, uses a vulnerability in a popular free software package called phpBB to spread across the Internet, infecting computer servers that host online bulletin boards and defacing those sites with the words "This site is defaced!!! NeverEverNoSanity WebWorm."

Google Squashes Santy Worm
Published: December 21, 2004

Antivirus companies say the Santy worm, which searches Google for sites that use a vulnerable version of the phpBB bulletin board software, was spreading quickly and had already infected about 40,000 Web sites by Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, a Google representative told ZDNet Australia that though Google users were not at risk from Santy, the search company had started blocking attempts by the worm to replicate.

http://news.com.com/Google+squashes+San ... g=nefd.hed

Look how much websites it got
343.000 results - Alot of them have been fixed by now I think.

Thx god msn-problems and cricketmx are (somewhat) safe

Gone up to 482.000 since then

Umm... the search is too broad. If you search for the whole of the 'defaced' message you only get 48,100 hits which matches what the anti virus sites are saying. I think your search is also spotting sites discussing the worm which includes news sites and forums.

I think maybe Rat has the right point on this one...