There ain't no Santy clause

If only all worms and viruses could be killed this quickly: Santy, which exploited a weakness in the bulletin board software phpBB was spotted doing its dirty work...

The worm uses the Google search engine to try and find vulnerable bulletin boards on the web. According to some reports, Google has started blocking the worm's attempts to replicate.

How will Google commence such blocking? Will sites using phpBB forums find themselves missing from the latest Google Index? Hopefully not.

(from Search Engine News Journal

But was swiftly put to bed, reports the Computer Business Review:

The Santy worm stopped spreading after Google Inc disabled web searches that looked like they had been generated by the malicious program, which was responsible for defacing tens of thousands of PHP message boards. But Santy's source code has been published, making it more likely that a variant could appear over the coming days and weeks.

I wonder about SERJ's statement that sites using phpBB would "hopefully not" find themselves missing from the Google search.

After all, what's more important: the security of web users or the search rankings of bulletin boards that have chosen to use a flawed piece of software?

)