2003 'Worst Year Ever' for Viruses, Worms12/23/2003 04:29 PM In no other year have computer viruses and worms wreaked so much havoc
and caused so much damage as in this past year, according to security
analysts.
Sony's profits slide 23 per cent for year; expects bounce this year
turbulence.org/Works/1year/performancevideo.php track this
site | 4 links
Chinese New Year - 2002 is Year of the Horse
Chinese New Year - 2002 is Year of the Horse01/22/2004 10:20 AM ¨§‡ … ˆ ˆ… †Š†Œ€Œ‡§ ¨§Œ §„ †ˆ .. Chinese New Year - 2002 is the Year
of the Horse .. Welcome to 4700 .. Monkey ..
4700
"From the shore, they look like tiny dots slowly making
their way out past the breakers. They're the software vendors
positioning themselves to catch the Enterprise RSS wave. My, that's a
lot of tiny dots...." [MoonWatcher]
RSS was big in 2004, but next year is going
to be something else. It's killing me that I can't say more, but I
know of two major library vendors that will make big announcements
about RSS in 2005. It's going to be a fun year!
PDA Viruses Could Get Nasty07/29/2004 11:58 PM Viruses that target handhelds can be even more dangerous than their
cousins that attack PCs, spawning self-replicating programs that hide
easily, a security researcher told an audience of security
professionals at the Black Hat Briefings conference here this week.
The first virus aimed at Pocket PC handhelds, revealed last week, could be far worse if it were
modified slightly to carry a harmful payload, said Seth Fogie, a vice
president of Airscanner, which develops security software for the
Window Mobile platform.
The benign WinCE4.Duts.A (or just "Dust") virus was created
as a demonstration of threats against personal digital assistants.
However, Fogie noted, such programs could spread stealthily, logging
keystrokes on the Pocket PC's "soft keyboard," and sending
data stored on handhelds across the Internet.
Viruses keep on growing09/20/2004 12:17 PM The volume of worms and viruses is increasing, but the rate of
successful attacks has dropped, according to Symantec.
When Viruses Attack
When Viruses Attack08/30/2004 06:13 AM A bacteria-eating virus is the star of a new video that could help
researchers learn the secrets of viral infection and thereby develop
better gene therapies. By Kristen Philipkoski.
Spam And Viruses Down?09/08/2004 02:29 PM It's only one month's worth of data (and only data from one company),
but MessageLabs is claiming that spam and viruses decreased
in August. It could just be that, like everyone else, spammers
took vacations in August. However, some are suggesting that the US crackdo
wn on spam operations may have helped. Of course, it should also
be noted that that the creator of six of the ten top viruses is
currently sitting in a German jail after charged with computer
sabotage, which might just explain the slowdown in virus activity.
Unfortunately, it's likely that others will come along to fill in the
empty spaces left by those arrested until a longer term solution to
spam is developed.
Currently I have 10 viruses that infect my PC and are yet to
100,000+ Viruses in 200412/29/2004 02:28 PM The BBC is reporting that there has been a 50% increase in
the number of viruses released in 2004; as many as 100,000 viruses
were seen 'in the wild', many of them doing serious damage to their
targets. Bot-nets, computers infected with remote control software
featured largely in 2004; equally prominent was the use of viruses and
these bot-nets for cyber-crime and sending spam.
2004 also saw the release of the first proper virus for mobile phones.
For PC's, in first place on the top ten viruses of 2004 was the Netsky
worm variant, <a
href="http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/w32netskypdam.html
">Netsky-P</a>. The worm exploited a
vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer and mailed itself to
vulnerable Windows machines.
It's very easy to blame Microsoft for the security issues associated
with their products; after all, 90%+ of people using a PC on the
desktop run a version of Windows. However, Microsoft are continuing to
make serious efforts when it comes to security, and Service Pack 2 was
a massive step in the right direction. Yet Bruce Schneier, a security
expert, believes that although the likes of SP2 were a
good start, they aren't good enough. "Deep down, Microsoft
still treats security problems as public relations problems. They are
still not able to make the hard trade-offs of security and
functionality. They still see features as their primary goal, and
security secondary."
Security problems are here to say; sensible protection can help you
avoid them. Stay patched up and only use secure and trusted programs.
Recent company acquisitions by Microsoft could signal either the
inclusion of basic anti-virus and anti-spyware with Windows in 2005,
or the offering of a Microsoft anti-virus solution.
Art/culture of computer viruses09/24/2004 05:36 AM David Pescovitz:
BB friend Alessandro Ludovico of Neural.it magazine points us
to "I love you (rev.eng): The Aesthetics of Computer Viruses," an
exhibit he's involved with that prem
iered in Germany and is now on view at Brown University in the US:
"I love you
[rev.eng]" is divided into four investigative areas - political,
cultural, technical and historical - and focuses on the controversial
positions of security experts and hackers, of net artists and
programmers, of literature experts and code poets...
What can visitors to the "I love you [rev.eng]" exhibition
expect?
- Force computers to crash with "Sasser" or "Suicide"
- Experience a global virus outbreak in real time via a 3D world
- View security concepts and methods for preventing global network
attacks
- Witness computer viruses as works of art like "biennale.py" and
"The Lovers"
- See films by hackers on their subculture
- Learn about programming languages as the material for contemporary
poetry
- Juxtapose experimental literature and code poetry
Link(to Brown exhibition details)Link(to Wired News article)
Mossberg: To avoid viruses, get a Mac
Mossberg: To avoid viruses, get a Mac09/16/2004 07:27 AM Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal has written a column for
Windows users today explaining how to protect themselves against the
plethora of computer viruses going around these days...
Viruses 'Winning the War'
Viruses 'Winning the War'03/08/2004 11:20 PM IT managers pressure vendors to take more aggressive stance...
HSBC deluged by viruses04/05/2005 09:12 AM ZDNet UK Apr 5 2005 1:02PM GMT Grok Description matches for Welcome to yet another year of viruses GrokA matches for Welcome to yet another year of viruses
Welcome to yet another year of viruses
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry:
View: 
News source: 
"I love you
[rev.eng]" is divided into four investigative areas - political,
cultural, technical and historical - and focuses on the controversial
positions of security experts and hackers, of net artists and
programmers, of literature experts and code poets...