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Computer Viruses Broke 100,000 In 2004
Sammy at Palm Addict writes "The count of known computer viruses broke the 100,000 barrier in 2004 and the number of new viruses grew by more than 50% according to news from the BBC. The BBC also reports that 'phishing attempts, in which conmen try to trick people into handing over confidential data, are recording growth rates of more than 30% with attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated.'"
They can have my confidential data when they pry it from my dead frozen Windows OS... oh wait!
Now how many non Windows viruses were there? You could probably count them on one hand. Let's give credit (or blame) where it is due.
I'm running Windows XP. Bill Gates says I'm safe from viruses.
Phising scams are becoming more prevelant on the internet and world wide web. Unfortunately, they are now starting to show up on 'Blogs as well.
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The most common sentence i heard from relatives this holiday was,
"Can you please fix my computer".
"I accidently clicked something and my computer is slow".
Should we really consider the dozens of variants of Bagle, Netstky, etc. separate viruses? Just because the anti-virus vendors choose to implement recognition of these variants by separate signatures, are they really different viruses?
I think it would be more interesting to know how many new virus/worm/trojan families were released year-to-year.
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
Does the article mention how many of those >100,000 affected the Mac OS platform?
The Top 10 List reads like the leader board at a chess competition.
1) Netsky-P
2) Zafi-B
3) Sasser
4) Netsky-B
5) Netsky-D
6) Netsky-Z
7) MyDoom-A
8) Sober-I
9) Netsky-C
10) Bagle-AA
---- You are fully entitled to my opinion.
I feel so cheated. My office Symantec Corporate Edition listed only 68585 viruses. Where are my other 31415 virus definition? :)
Just because you have an ultra-secure computer doesn't mean you should be complacent about theft of confidential data.
One of my buddies got his credit identity stolen a few months ago, he figures, by someone at a store who processed his credit application when he bought a home theatre system (Zero interest! Don't pay til way later!).
By the time collection agencies were knocking at his door, that store had closed.
The problem with this topic is that Microsoft is always blamed for making an inherently insecure operating system. They are also to blame because of "too little, too late", aka. activating the firewall by default only in SP2.
But quite frankly the ISPs and of course the individual users are to blame as well.
Why don't broadband ISPs require boradband firewalls? Only recently have some of them started to incorporate firewalled modems, and even then they're only sent to new customers. Would this mean that existing customers would have to spend money for a new router at the ISPs demand? You bet. But given the choice between disconnection or buying a $50 router, I'm sure that the vast majority would find a way to get that $50.
Additionally, most virii are sent over SMTP ports since they contain their own SMTP servers. I would not be against shutting down direct-from-client SMTP as long as those who run their own mail servers have the option of having their specific connection opened for SMTP traffic.
Finally, the users absolutely MUST be educated. There are enough free tools out there that no one should be unprotected. But again who should be responsible for teaching these end users?
At this point I would actually welcome something like a drivers license for broadband access. You don't gain the ability to use a broadband connection unless you prove to the ISP that you know the rules and that you are informed of how to be a responsible Netizen, including the use of firewalls, virus scanners, and alternate products like Mozilla, Eudora, Firefox, and others. If you break the "law" afterwards, your broadband privileges are revoked until you come into compliance.
If people were made aware that any virus or worm outbreak cause by them would mean the complete loss of their Internet connectivity, I think we'd see the number of virus infections drop dramatically.
But have an ISP do the responsible thing at the risk of pissing off customers? No, they'd rather spend billions of dollars a year on mail storage, spam-fighting hardware and software, increasing bandwidth usage, and always-rising amounts of mail to abuse@isp.net...and of course pass those charges onto us.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Viruses still exist because programmers still use obscure C functions full of holes and obscure processors full of executable stacks.
Please programmers, read the electronic paper "Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit" (->Google).
zzz