Slashdot Mirror
Viruses: More Hype than Danger?
blankmange writes "CNN is carrying a story on how the big virus scares within the last year or so have been just that: scares, usually hyped by the media with software companies standing by to reap the profits. 'The market for computer security is booming as PC users become more aware of the need to protect themselves from worms and viruses.
"Code Red" hit the headlines in July last year, with dire predictions that the PC worm would cripple the Internet. Yet in the end, Code Red didn't even make the year's virus Top 10.' PDAs are the next marketing target, along with cellphones."
People should be glad the vulnerabilities were not exploited to a greater extent and keep on working to keep things secure.
If people broke into my house one night and left after defacing my home, but didn't take or destroy anything - I'd still be pretty upset. And if it was because I'd left the front door open- I would really think about closing it and installing a lock (or locking it if there was already one that I had just left unlocked).
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Probably still the most damaging as far as I have experienced... the majority of problems with viruses i see are users passing on pretty obvious viruses.. maybe the answer is in the education rather than the protection
the day i get a virus on my cell phone or pda is the day i throw said cell phone or pda into the windshield of whatever SUV it was that beamed it to me accidently whilst turning around to hit their children.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
yah without consulting the list of the "top ten" virii, i would say the ones that get passed by floppy and email via word and excel documents are probably actually the most common ones...
not the ones that have been hyped.
i remember the ones that used to be really ubiquitous in the DOS/win3.1 days were the boot sector virii... those things were everywhere! and they could be passed on by floppy
It's just like the local weatherman.
They are the first to predict 18 inches of snow for a storm that produces only six. News sources love reporting gloom, doom and disaster, for it increases viewership/readership.
No one cares to hear "Nothing to see here, movealong".
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
But without the hype there would be more people without anti-virus software. We don't see a LOT of viruses hit our mail server, but we do see a few every day. If one of those got in and a user ran it, we'd be in trouble.
Better safe than sorry....
It's a good thing that Code Red was such a flop. Considering the # of hits my apache server gets every day from CR/nimda, I'd hate to see what would happen if it were still around.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Of course the security companies are going to strongly emphasize the risk of viruses, it should be expected-- it's what they do!
For news sites... they make everything overly dramatic. Maybe that's the problem.
What this article is really addressing IMO is the fact that news sites like to exploit people's fears in order to increase readership/viewership. That's an across-the-board news problem, not a virus problem.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
As I hold a delicious red caffienated beverage in my hand, I can't honestly say that the Code Red scare was all bad. :)
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
The "Top 10 for 2001" they are referring to are listed here.
En español aquí.
Funny, they all seem to have something in common...
eWeek has an article about how Microsoft Windows Update has actually removed hot fixes, causing a site to be re-hit by Nimda.
I'm a firm believer in revoking i-net privledges to employees who are stupid enough to send much less open attachments of the exe or macro variety.
The hype around viruses are by far the largest problem to me, and to many of my fellow tech savy coworkers. Most of us run home web servers, and when Code Red came out our ISP's premptively closed port 80 on all of it's customers to "prevent Code Red from damaging our ability to run a personal web server", wait a minute here... you're shutting down our web servers... so that Code Red can't shut down our web servers... good job guys. That totally ignores the fact that I run Apache too... oh well, cloaked redirection for me.
Really though, I serve as a virus debunker for many of my less than computer literate friends, but it would be nice if there was a public site for this sort of thing, that picked up e-mail hoaxes and displayed them for what they are, meanwhile addressing real problems and how to fix them. There are a couple for the more technologically gifted (such as Norton's anti-viral research labs) but there really needs to be a good "for the average user" site.
It's marketing. That's all.
Look at your Best Buy [boycott!] ad next time it comes. You always see rebates for *NEW!!* AV software and Peter Norton's products.
They never work with the older versions of Windows - and these companies always make a fortune off of new releases of that OS.
So why buy stock in Microsoft when you should be buying it in McAfee and Symantec.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Well, Code Red like exploits are still floating around looking for hosts.
They ought to be considered more like parasites than viruses. But I guess the analogies to biological organisms make for more sensational news.
If you were warned of the Ebola virus on one hand and the dangers of ghiardia in drinking water on the other hand, which would you get more excited about?
I can see the headlines now:
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I guess then CNN can produce an article about how it wasn't really hype after all and then, after everyone has forgotten about viruses, they can start hyping virus stories again. Then they can have a story about how much they are hyped. And then they can have a story about how there used to be stories about viruses and how they died down and now they've come back.
Endless stories without having to research anything. It must be fun working in media.
-- SIGFPE
I keep the virus software on my machines up to date and have never had any problems. What I find the most annoying is all the "There is a new virus that you need to know about... pass this along to everyone you know" emails. When a new virus hits CNN, there are more of these messages in my inbox than there is spam. On the other hand I've never had a virus emailed to me so maybe my informing these people of the need to use common sense and good virus software has helped :)
------
Objects in Mirror are Losing!
At least this ensures that poor security gets bad press, and forces vendors insecure vendors to clean up their act.
This guy has made a whole website about the "myths" of viruses
http://www.vMyths.com
Something smells fishy if a billion dollar business depends on these creations, and who knows more about them and how they work and how to create them than anyone else ?,
consipracy or our friends and saviours ?
Which top 10 list are we talking about here? The top ten Outlook worms? Top 10 viruses stopped by antivirus programs? Top 10 trojans?
Code Red (and derivitaves) were a major pain in the ass. My servers don't run any MS software, but Code Red still affected me. It kept hitting my ports, over and over and over again. That sounds like a minor annoyance, until you are using more than eth0. Think virtual hosting.
I also was lucky enough to have a number of clients that were using Cisco 678 DSL modems. Anyone remember that? Code Red locked them up. Until a patch was applied, they locked up every time they got a Code Red request. I knew of some people that would go and reset the Cisco, and be down again before they got back to their desk.
It may not have been the typical user spread virus, but it made my #1 last year, because I'm not stupid enough to use Outlook.
Disclaimer: I worked for a company that produced anti-virus software in the early 90s that was sold to Symantec.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The most annoying ones are those IIS worms that infest my DSL provider's network and fill up my Apache logs with crap. Anyone had any luck with Code Red Vigilante or anything similar?
PC users become more aware of the need to protect themselves from worms and viruses.
Awareness is rising? This is news to me -- also news to my webserver, which has taken 9000+ Nimda hits in the last three months.
Awareness of viruses may be rising, but awareness of how to secure one's own system from them is not.
--saint
Yeah, you'd be correct, if it wasn't for the fact that the patch was available for OVER A MONTH before code red EVER hit the scene. The blame lies squarely on people NOT MAINTINAING THEIR OWN MACHINES. Much like, say, GM would never be blamed for a family who died in a horrible accident after recieveing a recall notice, and ignoring it. Microsoft THEN took steps by turning Windows Update on, by default, in XP Home, and, predictably, everybody started crying because it's an invasion of privacy, and it takes choice away from the user.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Selling virus checkers for a platform with no verified viruses is perhaps a little premature, though what happens when the first appears if no-one's written a checker or has one installed? After all, people know what's possible in principle...
;-) and that we don't just download from some random warez site. OK, maybe worrying end users about Code Red isn't the best policy, but they needed to know about SirCam, for example.
Anyway. Get hit by one, _then_ say that. Someone at my office managed to sneak Klez round the side of a virus checker and we were cleaning that up for a good little while. Not only did it kill our AV software but it blocked it from being reinstalled. Nasty. Not that bright, either - far more sensible to let it get installed but transparently cripple it, so the user thinks they're fine...
Or the time when my Dad got hit by Kak, and the fun we had ripping that out of the registry manually because it had mucked up Norton. Or the many non-PC literate subscribers on a mailinglist I like who get hit by viruses and inadvertently post them to the list every few months on average.
Getting the average user educated about viruses and certain that they need good, up-to-date protection is essential. OK, so _we_ don't often come across them - but we know that some e-mails are intrinsically dodgy (well, many of us don't run Outlook in the first place
I honestly don't see a problem with the current level of virus news and would suggest that CNN's Kristie Lu Stout doesn't know what she's talking about and has never personally got a virus.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
On July 19, 2001 more than 359,000 computers were infected with the Code-Red (CRv2) worm in less than 14 hours. At the peak of the infection frenzy, more than 2,000 new hosts were infected each minute.
That was "over-hyped?" what would it take for it to be "valid concern?" Yes, Code-Red didn't do the damage it intended to...but it still did a heck of a lot of damage. Claiming that some anti-virus nonsense "top 10" has any bearing on the actual amount of damage done is just stupid.
Viruses aren't scary because we haven't put essential resources on the public network yet. Wait until your home security system is IP addressable, or any other of the countless "essentials" people plan to wire up.
I would have to agree that most virus stories were overblown at best, but at least it gives Joe Consumer the Head's up when it comes to viruses. Unfortunatly no one seems to listen to them.
For Example, I work at a university, and we have been recently blocking LAN ports form students that we find to be transmitting a virus. I have already had a loveletter and a klez come in today, and have had 22 nimda viruses come in over the past month. Im sure that theres more out on our network but we dont find out until their machine attempts to infect the server.
Most of the machines have had either Norton on it but not updated to the latest defs, Mcafee activeshield, which is basicially useless, or Mcafee Virusscan that was either not updated becasue no one wants to fill out the 1 page form for it, or is version 4.0 or earlier, which has no def updates.
Lately we've been pointing people to http://www.grisoft.com to get AVG for free from their site, and it helps, but im still getting machines in at a steady pace.
Frankly, I dont think anybody cares if they get a virus until it forces them to format and reinstall, then it gets their attention.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Well, I'm out of work now, but when I was working I had to deal with several virus outbreaks. It wasn't pretty or fun either. Usually it would happen like this.
I would get into work in the morning, read the latest advisory about some new virus. I would send out an e-mail to my users, "DONT OPEN ANY ATTATCHMENTS!" After which I would promptly apply fixes to the mail server.
My CIO would be reading her hotmail or yahoo mail, whatever. Point is it was a mail service outside of my control. She would see the subject, "I love you" and thinking it was a date, she would open it, from which it would spread like mad cow diesease. The rest of my day would be spent cleaning out her crap.
Wasn't this way at just one company, it was this way at every company I have ever worked at. No matter how much you try and warn these people they just don't listen. They have the attention span of a gerbil and it shows. And everytime it would happen I would always get the same answer from them, "But I swear I didn't open that attatchment" To which I would reply, "The computer must have MAGICALLY sprouted hands and fingers and opened the attatchment itself, oh don't forget it also typed in your webmail username and password for you too"
I dunno, being jobless all this time has made me realize a few things. There's no enjoyment in a job where you have to put out fires for 200+ people a day because they're too fucking stupid to figure out simple shit for themselves. They won't ever listen to your warnings, they don't seem to care that you have to spend several hours fixing their machines. They have an obvious lack of understanding that you have to actually concentrate to fix their problems, and this is made apparent by the 15 minute head pops they do into your cubicle, "Is it fixed yet? I have a really important blah blah blah for VIP blah blah blah."
I don't think CNN has any concept of what it's really like out there. The amount of single celled organisms in a corporation is astounding.
Code Red didn't even make the year's virus Top 10
...maybe because Code Red was a worm?
It has crippled my workplace because it was not a "high-profile" virus and Norton did not ship defs for it early enough.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
If the media didn't hype the virus issue to people who normally wouldn't know any different, then the problem would probably have been much much greater.
Think of Y2K: a big deal, yes, and plenty of people were saying right up through January 1999 that something had to be done, and soon, because thousands if not millions of computers and software programs were affected. Eventually, they all got on it. The problem was licked, and virtually no major Y2K issues were still existing by the time the date actually arrived.
Sure, some people overreacted by building underground computer-free bunkers and stocking up on gasoline and bottled water -- but then, there are always people who overreact. Y2K probably wouldn't have caused the end of the world, but it would have been a pretty big nuisance if the media didn't get the word out so that normal people knew to upgrade their products and pressure companies to produce the upgrades for them.
You can't over-hype virus issues. You can lie and say a problem exists that doesn't, but you can't stop stressing that antivirus software and common sense when opening attachments and securing connections is important. There's always someone new to the computing world, or someone who introduces a new attack strategy, which necessitates restating all the rules.
Bottom line: everybody with a computer needs some sort of antivirus protection, even if it's just common sense. Everybody with an Windows PC on the Internet ought to have antivirus software as well, and keep it up-to-date, just because that OS is so susceptible to new attacks.
Nononono. MSTDs. MicroSoft Transmitted Diseases. It also carries that dirty, gutter connotation that's *most* appropriate. To get one you have to have been somewhere you really shouldn't have been to begin with.
Doesn't anyone remember when viruses would actually do something?
Used to be when you got a virus it would munge your bootsector, and as much of the disk as it could after it mailed itself you all your friends.
The viruses these days just seem to be made to propogate as far as possible, or to do something juvenile like deface web sites.
The only reason they are only hype these days is because the payload is (relatively) innoxious. One line of code could make the few hundred thousand of computers infected last year dead, rather than popping up a cute little message.
I would have to disagree with the statement that viruses prey primarily on stupidity. I have many intelligent people working in my company who know nothing about computers. Accountants, Credit Managers, Sales Managers, Location Managers, etc. These people are intelligent and competent in their respective fields. However, many are no doubt "ignorant" regarding anything computer-related.
Instead of revoking access to users we like to label as "stupid", maybe we as IT Managers, Sys Admins, etc. should spend more time training our people rather than browsing Slashdot all day. : )
Just a thought.
Exactly,
:-
:-
DUMB COMPUTER USERS
Fact is, 99% of the world fit that category.
There was an article about designing UI's few days back and all I could think about was my financial partner who has to be told how to minimize a window every time.
The kinda guy that uses a remote email connection to send 10meg word documents to the person in the office next to him, even though all he needs to do is to send locally in 1/100th of the time.
The marketing-type person who leans over your shoulder when your computing and says to a client
"You know, these machines are amazing !"
Yeah - you should see the user jump through hoops of fire !
And we worry about virus problems being over-hyped ?
Screw the viruses,
I can see the headlines now
"Dumb computer users seen as the biggest risk to computer security."
"Symantec announces the anti-dumb-computer-user fix"
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Besides, in my experience, those who are not the computer-savvy fittest still have lots of pr0n to share. Gotta keep 'em operational.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I hold my breath when a new Nimda-class worm starts to spread. It kills Internet performance on my cable modem (operated through Road Runner, yet another AOL Time Warner collective) as many Windows users don't have proper protection set and propagate the virus nastily. I can't be infected; I use Mac OS 9 or X. But it drags network access to the ground and kicks it around for hours.
Fortunately, RR appears to deactivate accounts that are virus-ridden if no action is taken, which reduces the problem. Still, my Mac OS firewall dutifully records Code Red and Nimda attacks as well as the usual crackers trying to crack the very-difficult-to-crack Mac OS.
Thanks, Microsoft, for introducing software that helps inconvenience EVERYONE on the Internet.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
I really wish people would get the terminology correct. Spafford posted a good definition over twelve years ago. A quick and dirty definition: Viruses (virii?) generally require human interaction (open an email, click on a link, etc) while worms propagate on their own, exploiting vulnerabilites within an application or operating system.
With that said, it only makes sense that CodeRed (a worm) wouldn't make the top ten list of viruses. I doubt any true worm could ever make some top ten list when compared with large virus infections. Viruses infect workstations (PCs) while worms (generally) infect servers. Last time I checked, there were a whole lot more PCs than servers, thus a much bigger chance of infection. Furthermore, CodeRed's (a worm) impact was limited by that wonderful thing called Open Disclosure. No, M$ will never admit to this, but as a security professional who does network security monitoring, I know my clients would have been severly impacted if signatures hadn't been available for our sensors (insert shameless plug) a month prior to CodeRed (a worm!!) being released. Virus signatures, on the other hand, tend to be created after a virus has been let loose in the wild and has already impacted users.
Bammkkkk
www.sguil.net
The Analyst Console for NSM
How can anyone look at numbers like that and say it's not a problem? I find the numbers absolutely shocking...
Basically if I buy something from a website, I want to make sure it does not run on IIS. In that sense Code Red crippled many sites for me because I am not able to use them anymore.
Hmm, that's pretty funny cause when the worms hit, my IIS 4.0 box was immume and never affected. Since the web server responsibility was MINE, I made sure that IIS was secured... yeah that actually means "securing the box" (i.e., removing all script mappings, modules, etc that were not being actively used, securing the file ACLs, among other configuration changes). Yup, IIS was NEVER affected, therefore we were never hit. It still logs tons of hits per day from servers outside of the network as well.
It's funny that I think of the same thing when I see Apache servers that are running everything up to and including mod_YourMom... people need a lesson in security... it doesn't matter if it's IIS or Apache or NT or Linux or Joe's OS.... it makes no difference. Security holes exist in every OS and configuration... it's just the job of the astute sysadmin to make sure that the holes are plugged before the box goes into production use.
No matter how much you try and warn these people they just don't listen. They have the attention span of a gerbil and it shows. And everytime it would happen I would always get the same answer from them, "But I swear I didn't open that attatchment" To which I would reply, "The computer must have MAGICALLY sprouted hands and fingers and opened the attatchment itself, oh don't forget it also typed in your webmail username and password for you too"
(An open message to all bitter support people, angry at "end users")
(chuckles softly) Ever stop to consider that 99% of the "end users" (they are actually called people, or employees... you know the people we support who do the actual WORK that pays our salaries) out there don't really give a rip about your job frustrations any more than you care about the new IRS guidelines taxing the patience of Phil from accounting... Let's face it, most of what you tell them goes in one ear and out the other. NOT because they have the attention span of gerbils, but because YOU, and so many many like you, have a giant chip on your shoulder. You don't respect the people you work with, you don't appreciate the fact that you have a specialized skill that others don't share. So you talk down to your users, then you talk over their heads, then you talk about things that don't concern them or how they do their job. The signal to noise ratio is such that OF COURSE they won't really listen when you warn about viruses...
Lighten up a little, learn to see the bigger picture, learn to see your co-workers (once you get a job again) with compassion and not this holier than thou crap and I bet you might start to notice a change.
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
The obvious solution is for the Bush Administration to appoint a Computerland Security Advisor and then enact a "Computer Virus Warning System" that uses a different color code to indicate the severity of the computer virus/trojan/worm.
I recommend the following levels:
GREEN: Open any file or email attachment with inpunity
YELLOW: Don't open any attachment that contains a virus
ORANGE: Don't open any email client
RED: Turn off your computer
They can send an email each morning (or whenever the status changes) to all computer users so we know how to gauge the virus threat and take appropriate measures.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Computer viruses (including worms, trojans and so on) continue to be a real threat to many users (and yes, I will say especially Windows users). From my point-of-view this article did much more damage than good. It would be like writing a story saying that unprotected sex with strangers is okay because the odds of getting something aren't really all that great.
The fact is that the reason that the threat level from viruses is down is because more people are more aware and are taking preventitive measures. This reduces the spread of viruses in the wild but it does not stop them. I would argue that the fact that the spread of serious attacks being down demonstrates that what is being done is at least partly effective.
I'd also argue that even more still needs to be done. I'd suggest that when a company learns of an exploit involving their software, it is their responsibility to address it sooner rather than later - that by not doing so, they are part of the problem. I'd suggest that companies that allow the use of their resources by whatever means (ie:open relay, unfiltered email, access to systems and etc) also have responsibility. But most of all, I would argue that the vandals that write and knowingly distribute the software should be treated as felons and given appropriate sentences.
Even the aforementioned actions would not eliminate the need for protection in the form of secure systems, antivirus software, and due dilligence on the part of the user. But when all of these things are combined, we can keep the situation tolerable.
The "A-V" people deny this sort of theory with perhaps a bit too much vigor. See The Virus Creation Labs by George Smith.
Also, the "A-V" people really do depend on a constant stream of new viruses, trojans, worms, chainmails, etc. They've got a distinct conflict of interest going on.
The viruses that have been widely propagated so far have all been fairly benign - they haven't done that much other than propagate. After all, a virus doesn't spread terribly well if it destroys its host.
Imagine what the impact would be, however, of a virus that spreads as effectively as Code Red, but formats the hard-drive after 48 hours? (Or perhaps after it's infected a certain number of machines?)
There were plenty of IIS machines that were infected for a good deal longer than 48 hours before their owners became aware of it. Hell - my boxes at home still receive hundreds of Code Red probes.
The flow of IIS vulnerabilities doesn't seem to be drying up - it may well only be a matter of time before someone writes something that's really malicious. Growing complacent because the computer press has cried wolf so many times is incredibly dangerous.
The reasons that these more damagin virus's didn't take down the net or bring companies to a crawl is the same reason most virus's don't kill you. The more damaging the threat the more quickly and precisly the system's defenses react. For your body that means white blood cells and the other parts of the defense system react more vigorously, for computer viruses it means remediation efforts are put on highest priority and people work to clean them. Just because the defenses worked doesn't mean they aren't needed.
p.s. karma's at 50 don't bother moding up
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I'm running apache on my webserver that gets almost no legitimate hits a day. I don't advertise it etc.
My error.log file is 50 (Fifty) megs. Since January. 2002.
Lots of entries look like this, with some variations. I also appreciate skript kiddies trying to run root.exe on my box.
[Wed Apr 24 10:44:21 2002] [error] [client 4.35.125.66] File does not exist: *:/****/msadc/..%5c/..%5c/..%5c/..Á/..Á/..Á/win nt/system32/cmd.exe
I'd say that the main problem is not that the virus actually does anything harmful, but that their box is broadcasting to random ip's "hack me" and that person's hdd is shared with full perms and that if a script kiddie wanted to delete all files on the lamer's machine, they probably could, theft of corporate info (i.e. if someone works at home) is also really easy.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
You hit the nail on the head! They have enough problems with their own job frustrations.
Every time I hear that AOL commercial and that guy says "no more of that computer mumbo-jumbo" is causes me to shudder - I think "It's not mumbo-jumob, it's easy!" and then I realize to them it is mumbo-jumbo.
So treat is as such. Don't explain to them what viruses do or how they spread, if hotmail is causing problems, I block hotmail. But then again, I can do that. My boss is so comp-illiterate I don't even give him a PC, PDA, terminal - nothing! But when someone complains that they need hotmail, I ask "what business purpose does it serve?" I explain how much a virus outbreak costs the company, and the boss backs me up. End of problem.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
I can't believe how clueless people are that think viruses aren't dangerous. True the recent big ones have been annoyware, but it would have been childs play for their author to put in a malicious payload that could have erased everything on everyone's drives. It only takes one bad virus to cause trillions of dollars in damage, real damage. We should be taking these non-destructive ones as warning shots, not passing them off as just pranks.
Travis
That's like viruses. We spend millions and billions to prevent all of the viruses except the ones that fuck us up. God laughs at us.
In 2003, the news media reported on the Faux Flu. It was dangerous they said. It would kill old people and children. It would cause everyone else to spends weeks in the hospital. It had all sorts of nasty symptoms, which I won't describe here.
The reporting was hyped all out of proportion. Every hour on the hour there was a public service announcement regarding it. Major troop movements in the Middle East were relegated to the back page in favor of reporting on some kid with a runny nose on page one.
The public went into a panic. People went and got their flu shots. The covered their mouths and noses when the coughed or sneezed. They didn't go into work when they had the sniffles. They stopped french kissing with strangers.
But there was no outbreak. A total of five people died of the Faux Flu. The people blamed the media for inciting panic. Newspaper subscriptions plummeted and Disney Megacorp had to sell off AOL/TW to stay afloat.
Then the Fu Flu hit the next year. No one believed the media. No one took their flu shots. Sneezing in crowded train stations was considered hip and cool, a way of telling the doommongers to bugger off.
And 1.3 billion people died.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Well the article has been /.'d or something, so I can't read it, but is anyone else getting tons of Klez worms on the mail, either directly or as bounces? That's the one that exploits IE's problem with the word 'begin', *AND* forges return addresses from e-mail addresses found on infected computers.
It's very disturbing to get bounces from hotmail because you supposedly sent someone a virus. (No, I don't have it; all my e-mail reading and sending is done from a Linux box and its a Windows/Outlook worm.)
---dragoness
One line of code? With Microsoft Visual Basic .NET you can do it with only half a line! With SOAP compatability.
It's important to the revenue stream of the anti-virus companies that their products not work very well. Note how these things work. They mostly recognize known viruses. They don't generally stop improper behavior by all possibly-hostile content. Hence, constant upgrades are necessary. The initial version is usually free, just like a drug dealer.
It doesn't have to be this way. Suppose, for example, that Mozilla rendered all pages and executed all downloaded content in a "jail" secured by the OS, one that could write to the window, receive input when it has the focus, and talk back to the sending server, but nothing else. This could work under FreeBSD as currently shipping; Linux may get there.
Education is good, but how about educating companies like Microsoft so that we're less vulnerable to such viruses? Why should the users suffer so much when the majority of the blame (IMO) is on companies like Microsoft?
The "OBVIOUS" tag, I mean.
--Blair
Aargh! My mom got that on wednesday, and it overwrote all her images and cad drawings. It also, running on one machine, saturated her entire 7.5Mb/sec office internet connection and sent out 1500 copies of itself in less then an hour. Nasty!
They're disguised as the marketese word, "messaging"... that, and telemarketers.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Scares? I don't think so. None of these worms has been actually written well, taking into consideration survivability, self presurvation(sic?), or to take advantage of the human nature of things. They where, at best, bad examples.
In a way, I'm glad they where, indeed, POOR examples. They could have done much more damage, by actually taking over the affected systems. Build themselves a happy little distributed distributed network. Talk to eachother. Be silent for a while, allowing itself to propograte, comminucate, and eventually, launch a very deadly payload, all at once.
Last years worms where at best case, ticks or leeches. Easily removed, annoying as hell, but in most cases, for the most case, harmless..
Just wait. Fighting disease could be considered a 'scare'. But I have yet to see an AIDS of the computer world..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
I guess it's MY fault that I have to order a new laptop everytime this paticular sales lady goes out on travel and returns with a mangled laptop because "It's too much trouble to carry it on" This paticular lady i'm thinking of DESTROYED 9 laptops in 3 months! You would think MAYBE after the first one she would wise up BUT SHE KILLED 8 MORE!
Most places I've worked, the subsequent 8 laptops would have come out of HER paycheck--a great incentive to be more careful with company property. (The insane paperwork to get *anything* ordered at my current workplace is a good incentive not to wreck your current box, too).
Frankly, as long as it's not coming out of YOUR paycheck, why does her idiocy with laptops spin you up so much? They were still paying you for the work involved, right?
You're laid off, and bitter--I can understand that. Been there, done that a few times. Job searching all over and getting nothing for months on end is incredibly demoralizing. However, you might want to learn to relax and enjoy things a bit more, because that bitterness will show in job interviews. Also, if the job situation is that bad locally, why not search elsewhere? The internet is damn useful for that.
---dragoness
The claim "the virus scare is all hooey" is itself all hooey.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
I admit to being a download slut. I have downloaded most days for the last ten years. And I am not too particular about where I download from either. But I never get viruses. Well, I got one on the mac once in 1991. And another on a word document about 1997. But that's it.
When people ask me about viruses, I always tell them to use something besides Outlook and they will be fine. And they are.
For 98% of the people out there, the damn anti-virus software is more of a hassle than the viruses they can't catch. The bloat in security software puts MS to shame. All you need is Norton anti virus to show the kids what a 386 was like. Slooooowwwww.
The only way you can get a virus nowadays, is to start up Outlook. I do not understand why the corporate IT guys, for whom these high-profile worms are a genuine headache, do not sue MS. By pretty well insisting on having scripting 24/7 in all their apps, they have created a royal road into anyone's box. The patches they offer are laughable. The house is on fire, and when a bit of flame shows in the front window, MS generously rushes up with a glass of water.
Well, 4 years ago (adjust for inflation), in Louisiana (adjust for lower cost of living/lower pay rates), I worked for a computer consultant who charged $75/hour to people he liked, (i.e. his discount rate) for setting up/fixing Windows computers. He was also a greedy little cheat, too. (Adjust for dishonesty). That's one data point for you. Dunno how it compares.
---dragoness
Woman: "In other news, a lot of stuff happened that doesn't really affect you. In fact, most of it was thousands of miles away. We would tell you about it, but you'd just worry, lose some hair, and die a few days sooner."
Man: "We'll be right back after these messages from our honest sponsors..."
<accurate portrayals of real products>
Man: "...welcome back! And all this time I thought that sports car I drove made me more attractive to women."
Woman: "And I thought men who drove sports cars were better in bed!" (glances at co-anchor)
Man: "Upcoming later this hour, we sensationalize Timmy Smith's scraped knee, after a fall while he was attempting to ride a tricycle!"
Woman: "And we'll inflate claims by virus companies that hackers are out to make your life a living hell."
Man: "But first, let's go to Acton, Massachusetts for live coverage..."
Reporter: "Yes, the trolls are out in force today! It's sensationalism at it's best! Not bothering to read the stories they post on, internet users around the world are honing their reactionary skills to a fine point, putting all logic and reason behind them..."
This reminds me a lot of the hype that struck around the time of the Michelangelo virus in March of 1992. Virus experts were throwing out statements about a computer appocalypse that was going to wipe out the computers of millions of computer users. By going on television and being quoted in newspaper articles, companies like McAfee and Symantec basically created an industry for themselves by using fear to sell there product. Michelangelo went off with a whimper in the end, but the antivirus industry has been going strong ever since.
bbh
Hi! How are you?
I send you this post in order to have your nostalgia
See you later. Thanks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That'd be more of a mental disorder then a virus.. 8-P
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
It takes an actual (not threatened) disaster for people to actually care about disaster preparation.
.exe and subsequently infected all of our computers. It took me all day to fix the carnage left by Nimda.
Among the many other hats I wear, I'm the antivirus/worm/trojan/etc. person at my work.
About a month before Nimda hit last year, I'd written strict guidelines to how our company should safeguard itself against viruses. The president, who needed to approve the document before I sent it out, stated that the rules were too strict (don't open attachments you're not expecting/from people you don't know, etc.) and that since he wouldn't follow them, nobody else should either. He ordered me to edit the document so that it was more "friendly" and so I reluctantly rewrote it, and then emailed it out.
Lo and behold, Nimda hits the following month, and it's all over the media by the time I get to work. We were immediately infected with this thing before I even got to work (along with two major clients), all due to the lax guidelines I released the month before. Ironically, our president himself was the one to clicked on the Nimda
After I was done cleaning up Nimda's mess, I dusted off the strict version of my virus guidelines, and demanded that it be implemented immediately. It was made policy, and since Nimda, we have thwarted every other virus attack that has knocked on our door.
Unfortunately, I derived very little satisfaction from saying "I told you so" and smiling smugly into our president's humiliated face.
My comments here are my own; I do not speak for my employer.
Of course, things are different now. In the DOS heydey (including Windows pre-95), most viruses we re textbook viruses. Today, more of them should be defined as trojans and worms. There's no worm that you can see and say "well isn't that cute" as they all are quite damaging in terms of bandwith utilization. But there were/are many true viruses that are not damaging... or not damaging if caught in time. We all like fire, but nobody likes getting burned.
Now, back to the subject. Michaelangelo. Back when it was news some ten (egads!) years ago, McAffe was warning everyone of the impending doom. That year there were many people who lost data, but nowhere near as large as some people had believed. To be fair to the AV experts at the time, most of them gave a range from the small to the abnormally large- but guess which figure reporters used to sell papers?
So, life went on, and nobody was afraid about Michaelangelo anymore. Well, this poor sap was hit by it the *second* time it delivered it's payload (March 6th 1993). I lost of a lot of data that day, and boy was I surprised. Ironically, the data I miss the most is a copy of the virus itself. We all love fire, but we don't love getting burned.
Studying the interesting viruses was, and is, a really educational and enjoyable thing to do. I do not encourage people to distribute viruses. It's a dick thing to do. But there are plenty out there, and they'll forever live in databases like VSUM and whatnot. The game of virus authors versus AV authors is largely over; but it's still neat to see how different viruses copied themselves, and even more interesting the cryptic lines of text that can so often be found in infected executables.
Call me a hopeless virus romantic (not the VD kind), but I still think that's cool.
And holy crap, I just realized that the slashdot blackout already started. I apologize, didn't realize this before I typed this all up.
-bugg
Monday I ran into W32/Klez.h@MM which was no big deal by itself, but the W95/Elkern.cav.c nailed two computers so bad that they needed to be reinstalled.
So far at work we have been lucky and never gotten any of the "Hyped" viruses, just all the hoaxex; however, we tend to get the viruses that are not hyped and make small messes.
I wish that in this case that Klez was all hyped up since then McAfee would have released the DAT file that would detect Elkern. McAfee's website says that DAT 4198 will detect the virus, but they have only released 4198 today!
[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...] - Larry Wall in Configure from the perl
Don't even start that crap with me today when I've spent all day working on a professor's laptop that has a virus that required a complete reinstall because, for some mysterious reason, he had shut off his anti-virus software. If he had had it running it would have saved about a days worth of my time, which is far more than the cost of the antivirus software in the first place.
Virii are a big deal and any Windows user without protection is an idiot plain and simple. Antivirus companies make money because their products work pretty well most of the time. Why argue with their ability to make a profit? It's not like they're a monopoly, as there are numerous anti-virus vendors out there.
I guarantee, too, once Linux/BSD virii become more prevalent, that many of you will be purchasing antivirus software from your vendors. And don't give me this "But I can't get infected because I only run my stuff as a regular user..." blah blah blah. Every bit of software you run probably has an exploit in it. Just wait... the script kiddies just haven't been that creative yet.
In an ideal world, at least, EVERY person in the company is a required piece without whom the machine does not function. Naturally, some cogs are more easily replaced than others, of course.
Some people are hard to replace. Exchange admins are not one of them; But real system admins are. In addition, the entire company is screwed without them. They are, in fact, one of the master mechanisms.
There are definitely other people in the company whose departure would have a greater impact than the sysadmin. There are other people a company cannot really afford to lose who have a lesser impact than the systems admin. But ALL of the people in the upper echelon of importance should be listened to carefully by EVERYONE in the company, and ESPECIALLY the other important people in the company.
You can see the sysadmin's position as being highly analogous to HR; They do things which let other people do their jobs and not worry about some kind of infrastructure. Without them, the machine does not get oiled, whether we're talking payroll, or the file server. Making their job harder makes EVERYONE suffer, so there should be an immense incentive to pay attention to both people. In addition, both of them require a great deal of specialized knowledge about the field AND about the site.
So why is it that the HR person is more respected (or I should probably say feared) than the systems admin? Who knows. But great benefits, like not losing all your data, which is ostensibly important to you, can spring from paying attention to the systems admin, so people really should pay attention to them.
Not to mention... everyone knows that the sysadmin hates talking to the unwashed masses of ignorant employees, so if they bother to do so, you can be sure that it is important. So WTF? PAY ATTENTION TO THE SYSTEMS ADMIN. OTHERWISE YOU MIGHT LOSE ALL YOUR DATA. THAT WOULD BE BAD. THE SYSADMIN IS IMPORTANT. THE COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND. HAPPINESS IS MANDAT-
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There are two classes of malevolent viruses: nuisance viruses, which do nothing more than cause senseless destruction and "make a name" for the author, and voodoo viruses, those looking to use computing resources on a distributed level.
The first class of virus is only useful when it can attach itself to a a wide area of the population, which is why they're always prevalent in "best of breed" software. Windows, Office, IIS and Outlook are arguably easy to write viruses for, but i content that a lot of the shareware and even open source apps out there are just as easy. Hell, my news reader crashes every time i get a connection to my mail port; it'll probably never be fixed because it's just one guy writing it. But the ease of writing isn't the point -- the point is that these software packages are used by many, many people and even a difficult to exploit bug will have far reaching consequences.
For the voodoo writer, it's not the number of machines so much as the class of machine that's important. You want fast computers with fast connections (dumbass site admins help too). This means you want a critical bug with lots of power.
Neither of these class of author will ever write a pda or cell phone virus. Why? Because there are so many different implementations, each markedly different from the others, that an exploit would only apply to a specific phone on a specific provider. I mean, come on! There's not even a unified protocol for ring tones!
Not to mention that everything is processed by a proxy server before it even hits the phone. Result? A few complaints, and then the proxy is updated to save the phone.
I love FUD.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
People think about things differently. Really. Sometimes it's hard to understand at how basic a level they think differently.
... well, he may just not have understood you, because you didn't speak his language.
Different ways of thinking are better at different kinds of jobs. You *will not* get a marketer who's both good at convincing a client and good at understanding software. Those are different skills. (What you may get is a model builder who can explain his models to both the programmer and the marketer.)
The four basic skills, as I see them, are:
1) Formal reasoning
2) Model building
3) Preference ranking
4) Goal envisioning
Everybody is best at one of these. Being best at that, means being worst at a predictable other one.
So someone who is best at Preference Ranking will be good at marketing, but lousy at following detailed instructions. And someone who is great at Model building will be lousy at Goal envisioning. (These are the pairs that I find predictable.)
Likewise everyone as a second best skill (which, of course, implies which skill is third best). So some programmers can read a flow chart easily, and other programmers can envision where their code is heading. And these aren't usually the same people (though some people seem to sort of balance on the cusp there).
So Joe in sales doesn't follow your directions not because he's angry at you, and not because he's a real doofus, and not because
As a general rule I find that the non-technical people I deal with don't understand my natural way of speaking. I need to make a model or explain how it fits into their goals to really catch their attention. About 1/4 of the people will just understand the instructions. For about another half you'll need to catch their attention somehow, and then they'll be able to follow the instructions (somehow because two different approaches are needed here).
For the remaining 1/4, following detailed instructions is a real problem. Because that's not the way they think. Best if you can fold everything into a file that you can tell them "Just run this". If that's really impossible, then try to both make a model of what needs to be done (that the instructions fit into naturally) and explain how it fits into their goals. (I always find this so difficult that I generally do the last few people myself.)
But just imagine that you had to spend your time schmoozing... and choosing which people to pay attention to, which to ignore, etc. (I can't explain it correctly, because I don't understand it myself. But I've seen those skilled in the art in action, and I know when something is totally beyond me.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Training? Some of them are trainable. But only some.
Being intelligent is in no way the same as being able to understand computers. That's one kind of intelligence. Some people just don't have that kind. Because a kind of intelligence that confilicts with that is associated with successful manipulation of people, many of them are managers, public relations people, marketers, salesmen, etc.
I'm not saying they aren't intelligent. I couldn't learn to do what they do, and they couldn't learn to do what I do. Our intelligences are different. But they are sufficiently different that attempts to train them in computer understanding (rather then simple manipulation) are destined for failure.
At least that's the way I see it.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
..last week saw my work being bombarded by that annoying Outlook exploit and automated warning messages that were being sent to the wrong person because the From: line is taken from the infected person's contact list. And our student labs pick up at least a dozen viruses every day (usually about 3 or 4 different ones). Yeah, it's hype.
There have only ever been a handful of Macintosh viruses, excluding Word Macro Viruses. (Which are entirely due to M$'s incompentance.) Yes, I have a virus scanner, but I've only EVER found one infected file in the 17 years I've used Macs.
Dog is my co-pilot.
No, of course not. Real network admins know everything about their networks by watching the link lights on their switches. Since they can see the contents of the packets that are being sent and recieved, all they need to do is decode the packet in real time. Junior admins occassionally have problems mastering the ip checksum algorithms, but well-practiced senior net admins can track thousands of concurrent TCP connections. It's a simple matter to determine what the network is being used for just by watching the blinking lights.
And you thought those light were just to look pretty. Ha!
If the past year's viruses were all hype, I have to wonder how serious a virus has to be before they actually claim them as dangerous.
Thanks to SirCam, I personally received two documents from Fortune 500 companies (which were infected) with draft proposals for new products and the markets they were targetted for. I get to know the plans of a big company even before their CEO does.
Thanks to CR/Nimda, I get to see at least 100 probes a day trying to get to my personal web server. On more active days, that number is more like 500. And this is now, over 8 months after the virus was at its peak.
I know of at least a few administrators (that work at various companies) that had to put in about a week to get the "I love you" virus under control. And that virus didn't even have a nasty payload.
Mind you, they could have been much worse. The simple fact is that most of these viruses were born from stupid bugs (which in most cases were simply overlooked) and hence were somewhat easier to fix.
By your logic, you're focusing the burden of responsibility to the admin and not the end user. So I guess it's MY fault they opened the attatchment. I guess it's MY fault that I have to order a new laptop everytime this paticular sales lady goes out on travel and returns with a mangled laptop because "It's too much trouble to carry it on" This paticular lady i'm thinking of DESTROYED 9 laptops in 3 months! You would think MAYBE after the first one she would wise up BUT SHE KILLED 8 MORE.
Often, as in this example it's the same end (l)users who do stupid things time and time again. But typically the sysadmin isn't in a position to say "you break it, then fixing it is at the bottom of the priority list".
Easy to say when you have a good job. I consider them PEOPLE when they HELP ME HELP THEM to solve their problem. When they are lazy ("oh, just send someone up. I don't have time to sit on the phone all day."), unecessarily vague ("Is the Internet down?"), or rude, they are not people.
There is the all time classic "dosn't work". Including in cases where the computer is working perfectly, just that GIGO applies.
But typically the sysadmin isn't in a position to say "you break it, then fixing it is at the bottom of the priority list".
YES!! Exactly! If you spend %15 of your time on one user in a month because they constantly are breaking something, other people get jaded that they are not recieving enough attention. Collecting all the parts, getting the shipping, calling the vendor for a RMA#, shipping the thing back and imaging the software back onto the machine when the machine comes back takes TIME. Time that has to be balanced out or otherwise it just put's the admin in a position where he/she might be taking precious IT resources away from other departments. If you cannot balance yourself out between all the departments in a company because of one person, i'm sorry but they're an asshole for not being consciences. They're not thinking about the time it takes me to replace the equipment, the cost to the company, the CEO's and salespeoples time for making the money to pay for the damn equipment in the first place.