Microsoft Corp said it had fought off an attempted software virus attack that was aimed at shutting down some of the company's Websites.
Stephen Toulouse, a security programme manager for Microsoft, said on Tuesday the company's Websites were up and running as of midmorning.
The virus works by getting infected computers to send hundreds of thousands of requests for the site per minute, in hopes of crippling it. Toulouse would not detail how the company had been able to ward off the attack, citing security concerns.
'It's still a little early and we remain vigilant,'' he said.
The virus, called 'Mydoom.B,'' was programmed to launch an attack on Microsoft's site on Tuesday, two days after a variant shut down the Website of The SCO Group, a small Utah software company.
But security experts had said the Mydoom.B variant was spreading much less quickly than Mydoom.A, the version that attacked SCO Group.
Last week, Microsoft said it would pay $250,000 to anyone who helps authorities find and prosecute the author of the virus. The cash reward is the third so far under a $5 million programme Microsoft announced in early November to help US Authorities catch authors of unusually damaging Internet infections aimed at consumers of the company's software products.
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