Worm Puts CNN in Freak Out Mode

CNN.com - Worm strikes down Windows 2000 systems - Aug 16, 2005:

Today CNN went on at least a 1-hour live, "Breaking News" alert (aka. freak out the public over nothing because we don't do real news mode) this afternoon, because their system admins didn't run Windows update and they were infected with a computer virus/worm.

I can understand when my grandma's computer gets infected with garbage. But at CNN, ABC News, etc?! Don't they have a couple dozen professional computer geeks on staff?

So they had a few computers crash because of a worm and lazyness - big deal. It happens to thousands of Windows users every day - perhaps more like every minute. But apparantly until Wolf Blitzer loses one of his monologue, never-ending-take-a-breath-already-questions due to a computer crash, it apparantly ain't news.

If a corporate network got infected because of this, they should find a new network team. The patch for the worm was available and notice was given 2 days ago. Wait, before CNN goes after them, they should really fire the producers for reporting on junk and calling it news. (Has anyone ever reported getting eye cancer from watching cable news?)

It will be funny to see if this is even mentioned in tomorrow's news in any substantial way. Today it was an Earth-shattering computer virus that will eat your children. Tomorrow it will be back to the normal 4-hour, in-depth coverage of Paris Hilton's boob job.

Perhaps the bright side of this story is that there wasn't any real news to cover so this was just filling time. But we all know that those national/world stories just weren't sexy and/or easy enough to "sell" in a 30-second sound bite.