LovSan Clone Let Loose

JMullins writes "According to Kaspersky Labs the LovSan virus has been re-released in a new form that has changed the appearance of the worm. It looks like the outbreak continues to get worse and worse, with no real end in sight until people can patch their systems. Net slowdowns are expected over the weekend when both versions of the virus start their attack."

Comments

Re:And while you all get easy 5, funnies.

[NanoGator]

"Linux has its own problems. But you mod them -1 under the rug until the fsf site gets hax0red. troll but true. "

That was true like a year or two ago, but since this has come up I've been amazed at how things have changed here. It's not that it's turning pro-Microsoft, but the "Everything Linux does is perfect" attitude has settled back down to realistic levels.

I agree with you, though, Linux is a root password away from being ssh'd to hell.

Is *nix that much more secure?

[sanx]

OK - maybe this is a -5 Flamebait here, but here's a couple of my thoughts.

The desktop world is ruled (by numbers, anyway) by Microsoft. Any potential malware s'kiddie can knock together some malware in a few hours, dump it into some unsuspecting newsgroup somewhere or email it to his Outlook-using mates and start an epidemic relatively easily. The sheer number of vulnerable machines makes that easy.

The installed base of Windows boxes also means that, despite MS not opening up their code to anyone (except governments and universities willing to sign away their first-born as insurance against breaking the NDA), large numbers of people spend vast tracts of time throwing McValue Meal-sized URLs at web-servers and mutant packets at RPC interfaces.

Lots of people x Lots of time x Lots of machines = lots of vulnerabilities found...

Now consider *nix. It has a number of advantages straight off the block:

1. It's open source. Code that finds its way into the kernel goes through the best peer-review system available; public scrutiny.
2. Generally, the people who run *nix are more tech-savvy than an average Joe Blow.
3. Any vulnerabilities that are found get acknowledged and fixed very quickly.

But what would happen if *nix had the sort of desktop penetration that Windows does? How quickly would the kind of person that thinks a computer case is called a 'hard drive' apply a *nix security patch? If *nix was that popular, how many more people would devote vast tracts of time to finding obscure security holes and vulnerabilities?

Just a thought. Now flame away ;)

Re:That's media reporting for ya

[Pharmboy]

Well, to be honest, if it didn't sell, the media wouldn't report it that way. People LOVE catastrophe and doomsday predictions, for some odd reason.

On a similar not, I am witnessing tv hype disaster now. All the power is out in NY, and people have been calmly walking down the street to leave town. Others are "volunteering" to direct traffic, and people are obeying. People are out together in the street with candles, checking on neighbors, almost everyone is calm, even tho with the power out, getting news in was slow and difficult (like 9-11, but much milder). Sure, some will take advantage of the situation, but burglaries happen every night. On the whole, I am pleasantly surprised at how well organized it is, and how well its going so far. Its a success story on dealing, again.

Yet the news channels are TRYING to make it out to be worse than it is. They are saying how people are mad and want to know why this happened, but they can't SHOW someone saying that, they just report that its true. fox/cnn all the same.

The real irony is how calm everyone is, how they are seem to have a "oh well, can't help it, no reason to freak out" attitude even while the news reporters are almost trying to get them to.