Computer virus hits US media outlets

SEATTLE - An unidentified software virus was being blamed for computer system outages at ABC News, CNN and the New York Times, as computer security companies tried to pin down the cause of the disruption.

CNN, breaking into regular programming, reported on air that personal computers running Windows 2000 at the cable news network were affected by a worm that caused them to restart repeatedly.

Over the last week, Microsoft Corp. and security companies have warned of a new worm, called "Zotob", that could allow an attacker to access PCs by exploiting a recently discovered flaw in Windows 2000.

But security software company McAfee Inc. and Microsoft said that they did not see any heightened activity from Zotob.

The New York Times said it had faced internal systems computer outages earlier in the day.

"We just don't have a lot of details," said Catherine Mathis, spokeswoman for the New York Times Co.

"It was earlier today. We're fully operational and we don't expect (the outage) to affect the production of the paper."

Officials at ABC News also reported some outages.

McAfee, the world's second largest security software maker, said it was investigating whether there was a new worm or virus circulating on the internet.

CNN is a division of Time Warner Inc, ABC is a division of Walt Disney Co.

- REUTERS