Microsoft Corp. appeared to have survived the worst the MyDoom worm could throw at it Tuesday. Experts say the virus, a variant of the MyDoom.A virus that knocked out another company"s Web site Sunday, was programmed to fire continuous volleys of debilitating data at Microsoft"s site Tuesday. But there was no visible impact on the software giant"s Web site, https://www.microsoft.com, which barely flickered as the MyDoom.B Internet worm"s trigger time of 8:09 EST passed. Microsoft had said Monday it was taking a series of technical precautions to ward off any attack. The company declined to give any immediate comment Tuesday.
MyDoom.B is a low-grade variant of the original MyDoom.A virus, the fastest-spreading e-mail contagion to ever hit the Internet, security experts said. MyDoom.A has infected hundreds of thousands -- and possibly over one million -- PCs, generating a torrent of spam e-mails and crippling corporate e-mail servers, plus slowing traffic for some Internet service providers. The biggest victim of MyDoom.A was Utah-based computer software firm SCO Group. The week-old worm, also dubbed Novarg or Shimgapi, knocked the SCO site offline Sunday with a barrage of data known as a denial of service attack.