Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Assessing Internet Viruses Like Human Epidemics

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the beating-the-spread dept.

underpar writes "This ComputerWorld.com article discusses the UCSD's $6.2 million attempt to study Internet viruses in a manner similar to the study of human epidemics. Stefan Savage, a computer science professor, is quoted in the article as saying, 'We'll be focused on what vectors are used, just like in assessing West Nile, to spread computer viruses and ultimately try to develop defenses to prevent them from spreading.'"

5 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting Academic Exercise by tony3w · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is an interesing academic exercise, but the basic defenses that have been preached for years work just fine:

    - Avoid IE for surfing
    - Avoid OL/OE for eMail
    - Firewall (in and out) all OSes with large numbers of exploitable bugs
    - Automate patching
    - Warn on Anomolous behavior
    - Have a virus scanner that is up to date

    I don't even rely on the last one and I've been virus free for the past 9 years!

  2. Re:Hasn't this been done before? by hashish · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah, and this does miss some points. Viruses in humans can mutate and attach themselves to other viruses. Until a computer virus does this they eventually die out when the PC gets patched.

    But i guess it was fun for someone to do...

  3. Re:Hasn't this been done before? by Mshift2x · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes. This has been done before. We've done this in our calclulus class. We've used a program to map the 'lifecycle' of a virus. First numerous vulnerable PCs, the way in which they spread to eachother, new vulnerable computers being connected to the internet, patching of the computers. It was all pretty cool stuff.

  4. Re:Hasn't this been done before? by darkain · · Score: 5, Interesting

    polymorphic code

  5. Difference between computers and organisms: by cr0z01d · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Organisms can die from diseases. A virus won't destroy a computer, the worst case scenario is a wipe and fresh install. This means that Microsoft can make their software bug-ridden.

    Maybe if viruses were to fry hardware, we could see some improvements.