Korean firm combats attack on computers

A Korean company that develops anti-virus software said yesterday that it has released a partial solution to protect computers from Mydoom, a mushrooming “worm” considered to be the fastest-spreading outlaw computer program in history. Ahnlab, Inc. said its Virus Blocking Service stops worms from entering networks within 10 minutes of detection by filtering the infected mail at the level of mail servers. The worm has infected more than 1 million computers worldwide, according F-Secure, a Finnish computer company. In a similar virus attack in 2002, 98 percent of the viruses traveled through e-mail and spread worldwide within one hour, F-Secure said. Computer users were forced to temporarily cut networks or stop the operation of servers before vaccines were updated.