Microsoft "Swen" Worm Squiggles Into Sight

greenhide writes "As forecast in this story, a new Microsoft worm has indeed wriggled to the surface. The W32.Swen's claim to fame is its professional looking email advertisement that pretends to be a fake Microsoft patch. Earlier viruses have made the claim, but none of them looked this good. It appears to have infected over 1.5 million machines. "

Comments

Fascinating isn't it?

[Afrosheen]

After all these worms and virii are hitting MS boxen from every angle, there still aren't mentions of alternatives from major news sources. The Dallas Morning News, last week, had at least a causal glance by saying in one line "Macintosh users are unaffected".

Why isn't Linux and Macintosh turning this into a big propaganda opportunity? Both OS's can hold up the 'come to us, we've had our shots, we'll never get worms' flags and pray that the big media mentions it.

...Not a Good Idea (R)

[thermopile]

I should think it would be exceedingly hard for a marketing community to market its 'immunity' to virii -- even a marketing staff as highly trained as whatever Apple hires -- without setting itself up as the next target.

Hypothetical advertisement: "Hey, we're Macs, and we don't have viruses."

I guarantee you that every virus writer and his(/her?) grandmother would flock to OS X and start writing viruses with reckless abandon. Apple, Linux, Amiga, Commodore 64, and whatever other less-used operating system is probably perfectly happy to have its users sitting fat, dumb, and happy and not bragging about it.

Accepted as the norm now?

[thenextpresident]

I can't help but feel that people have accepted the fact that Computers in general get Viruses. People complain about Windows, but Windows, to most people, is the only solution. So for them, the concept that Windows gets hit with so many viruses means that users in general get hit. No matter the OS.

I was explaining the other day to one of my business partners not to install this virus, and to delete it right away if he gets it.

He asked me if my computer was infected, whereby I had to explain once again that running Linux, I generally don't have to worry about things like this.

But the point is, for him, computers just get viruses. And because of that, I believe that most people are thinking: "Hrm, my computer got a virus.", not "Windows let another Virus through."

So the majority of the people that aren't really computer illeterate (the majority), don't really know what to think when people tell them Linux is more secure.

Because for them, it's still running on their computer, and their 'computer' got a virus. It's just their mentality. Of course, this is simply my opinion.

Uninterested?

[chihowa]

I'm a mechanic (ASE and all that crap) as well as a computer dork. I can (and do) fix my own plumbing, do my own carpentry, and am learning to adequately use a loom (which I made) to make clothes. I grow a substantial amount of my own food. I'm posting this from a browser that I wrote myself.

No troll, I'm dead serious.

I wish people took more interest in the things that they use every day and take for granted. Everything is so completely fascinating. I think that there is no better pursuit in life than to learn the hell out of everything. The way people learn one thing and then get all arrogant about it is, in my opinion, the worst behavior of all.

There are tons of things that I don't know, I don't look down on people for not knowing things. It does bother me when they refuse to learn, though.

People do awful things to their computers and people do awful things to their cars (and their plumbing!). If people took a little more time to appreciate the things that they take for granted, many of our problems would be gone.

I didn't mean for this to end up all preachy, but I don't remember where I was going. If I hadn't already typed so damn much, I'd just quit now, but hell...

That's absurd.

[Alethes]

If popularity is what makes Windows insecure, then why is IIS being hit many more times than Apache even while Apache runs 60% of the websites out there?