The Sequential Label and Supply Company (often referred to as SLS) is a. national supplier of stock labels as well as a manufacturer of custom labelsand distributor of supplies often used in conjunction with labels, such asenvelopes, adhesive tape, mailing cartons, and related office supplies. Thecompany was founded by Fred Chin in 1992 and has grown steadily in theintervening years.As the case study begins, the company has recognized its growingdependence on information technology and has organized its informationtechnology group as shown in Figure D-1. (FOUND ON LAST PAGE)TroubleIt started out like any other day for Amy Windahl at Sequential Labeland Supply Company. She liked her technical support job at the help desk.Taking calls and helping the office workers with PC problems was not gla-morous, but it was challenging and paid pretty well. Some of her friendsworked at bigger companies, some at higher-tech companies, but everyonekept up with each other, and they all agreed that technology jobs were agood way to pay the bills.The phone rang. This was not a big deal for Amy. She answered herphone about 35 times an hour, 315 times a day, nine days every two weeks.The first call of the day started out the same as usual, with a worried userhoping Amy could help him out of a jam. The call display on her screengave her all the facts: the user's name, his phone number, the departmentin which he worked, where his office was on the company campus, and alist of all the calls he'd made in the past."Hi, Bob," she said. "Did you get that document formatting problemsquared away after our last call?"
"Sure did, Amy. Hope we can figure out what's going on today.""We'll try, Bob. Tell me about it.""Well, my PC is acting weird," Bob said. "When I go to the screen thathas my e-rnail program running, it doesn't respond to the mouse or thekeyboard.""Did you try a reboot yet, Bob?""Sure did. But the window wouldn't close, and I had to turn it off. Onceit finished the reboot, and I opened the e-rnail program.Tt's just like it wasbefore-no response at all. The other stuff is working OK, but really, reallyslowly. Even my Internet browser is sluggish.""OK, Bob. We've tried the usual stuff we can do over the phone. Let meopen a case, and I'll dispatch a tech over as soon as possible."Amy looked up at the LED tally board on the wall at the end of the room.She saw that there were only two technicians dispatched to desks ide supportat the moment, and since it was the day shift, there were four available."Shouldn't be long at all, Bob."She clicked off the line from Bob and typed her notes into ISIS, the com-pany's Information Status and Issues System. She assigned the newly gener-ated case to the deskside dispatch queue, knowing the roving desks ideteam would be paged with the details and would attend to Bob's problemin just a few minutes.A moment later, Amy looked up to see Charles Moody walking brisklydown the hall. Charlie was the senior manager of the server administrationteam. He was being trailed by three of his senior technicians as he made abeeline from his office to the door of the server room where the companyservers were kept in a controlled environment. They all looked worried.Just then, Amy's screen beeped to alert her of a new e-mail. She glanceddown. It beeped again-and again. It started beeping constantly. Sheclicked on the envelope icon, and after a short delay, the mail windowopened. She had 47 new e-rnails in her inbox. She opened one from DaveyMartinez, an acquaintance from the Accounting Department. The subjectline said, "Wait till you see this." The message body read, "Look what thishas to say about our managers' salaries ... " There was an icon for a fileattachment that Amy did not recognize. But, she knew Davey, he often senther interesting and funny e-rnails. She clicked on the icon.Her PC showed the hourglass pointer icon for a second and thenresumed showing its normal pointer. Nothing happened. She clicked onthe icon for the next e-mail message. Nothing happened. Her phone rangagain. She clicked on the ISIS icon on her computer desktop to activate thecall management software, and activated her headset. "Hello, Tech Sup-port, how can I help you?" She couldn't greet the caller by name becauseISIS had not yet opened the screen on her Pc."Hello, this is Erin Williams in Receiving."Amy glanced down at her screen. Still no ISIS. She glanced up to the tallyboard and was surprised to see the inbound call counter tallying up waitingcalls like digits on a stopwatch. Amy had never seen so many calls come inat one time."Hi, Erin," Amy said. "What's up?""Nothing," Erin answered. "That's the problem." The rest of the call wasan exact replay of Bob's earlier call, except Amy couldn't type the notesinto ISIS and had to jot them down on a legal pad. She also couldn't dis-patch the deskside support team either. She looked at the tally board. It hadgone dark. No numbers at all.Then she saw Charlie running down the hall from the server room. Hedidn't look worried anymore. He looked frantic.Amy picked up the phone. She wanted to check with her supervisorabout what to do now. There was no dial tone.The next day at SLS found everyone in technical support busy restoringcomputer systems to their former state and installing new virus and wormcontrol software. Amy found herself learning how to install desktop com-puter operating systems and applications as SLS made a heroic effort torecover from the previous day's attack.1. Do you think this event was caused by an insider or outsider? Why doyou think this?2. Other than installing virus and worm control software, what can SLSdo to be ready for the next incident?3. Do you think this attack was the result of a virus, or a worm? Why doyou think this?