When the Santy.a worm started spreading on Tuesday, Mikko Hypponen knew he had a way to stop the worm in its tracks. The only problem: He had trouble finding the right people to talk to at search giant Google. The Santy.a worm used the search engine to select potential victims. Armed with the list, the worm sent code designed to compromise the potentially vulnerable sites. Because its search engine was a linchpin for the attack, if Google had been ready for the eventuality, the company could have stopped the worm cold, said Hypponen, the research director for antivirus company F-Secure.
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