Worms Come Through MyDoom Back Door; DHS Launches Trio of IT Security Groups; Top Bush Aide Questioned in CIA Leak; Embassy Security Tightened as Terror War Goes On

Worms Come Through MyDoom Back Door

Virus writers are exploiting machines infected by MyDoom-A to launch a denial of service attacks on Microsoft with the release of yet another Net worm, according to The Register today. The Doomjuice worm (AKA MyDoom-C), discovered yesterday, uses the back door installed by Mydoom-A to spread. Doomjuice does not propagate using e-mail. Zombie machines infected by MyDoom-C become part of a DDoS attack against Microsoft.com. A second worm, Deadhat, removes the MyDoom virus from its victims, installing itself instead. Neither of these worms, The Register reports, is moving very quickly.DHS Launches Trio of IT Security GroupsGovernment Computer News that the groups give cybersecurity officials a method for meeting in person as well as in online collaboration environments. The three units are The Government Forum of Incident Response Teams (or G-FIRST), The Chief Information Security Officers Forum, and The Cyber Interagency Incident Management Group.

The Homeland Security Department has formed three new organizations to strengthen federal IT defenses and coordinate responses to systems threats. DHS National Cyber Security Division director Amit Yoran told

Top Bush Aide Questioned in CIA LeakThe New York Times today, President Bushs press secretary and a former White House press aide testified on Friday to a federal grand jury investigating who improperly disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. officer, the press secretary and a lawyer for the aide said yesterday. In addition to the grand jury appearances, which are believed to include other Bush administration officials, prosecutors have conducted meetings with presidential aides that lawyers in the case described as tense and sometimes combative. The Times says prosecutors have been careful to avoid signaling their overall theory of the case, nor have they given hints about who they suspect leaked the information to Robert Novak, who wrote in a Washington Post column last July that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a critic of the administration’s Iraq policy, was Valerie Plame, a C.I.A. undercover officer. The grand jury inquiry has accelerated at the same time that a group of former C.I.A. officers and some lawmakers have demanded a Congressional investigation into the leak. But so far, Republican leaders in the House and Senate have not initiated the inquiry.

According to a story in

Embassy Security Tightened as Terror War Goes OnMorning Edition story, NPRs Susan Stamberg talks with Ambassador Francis X. Taylor about how terrorist threats have changed the business of American diplomacy. Taylor is assistant secretary of state for Diplomatic Security at the State Department and says diplomatic work goes on despite new security risks. (Audio file.)

In an