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Security Threat Changing, Says Symantec CEO
narramissic writes "At the Symantec Vision event in Tokyo Thursday, chairman and CEO John Thompson spoke about a shift his company has observed in the threat posed to computer users and companies by hackers. 'While a few years ago many people were much more focused on attacking the machine and attacking the broad-based activities that were going on online, now all of a sudden we've noticed a significant shift in both the type of attack and the motivation of the attack,' he said. 'The attacks that we see today are more targeted and more silent and their objective is to create true financial harm as opposed to visibility for the attackers.'"
I guess now they want money instead of just bragging rights.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
CEO: Quick! Vista is too secure and our products are too badly written to rewrite them for Vista. We need a new business model!
Marketing Department: There's this... threat, yeah, threat... to like, businesses. They have a lot of money... maybe we can sham them for a few more years?
CEO: Brilliant!
"businesses will have to spend more time and energy on making sure that data is not just secure but also recording which users are accessing and manipulating information stored in corporate databases" which are housed overseas and manned by guys who would kind of like to behead your infidel children.
Good. Now maybe people will take these threats seriously. When I started using computers (in the 80's) viruses were a serious threat. People talked about viruses with fear in their voice. These days they're just a nuisance.
Oooh, that virus sends itself to all your buddies in your address book. How TERRIBLE! Wow, a virus pops up windows on your screen even though you didn't ask for it. How NAUGHTY!
When I started using PC's, viruses would wipe out your entire drive. They would delete critical files. They would overwrite your boot sector. They would wipout your FAT table. Now THOSE were some viruses!
Once viruses get back to the level of actual harm, maybe people will stop clicking around willy nilly and will start to invest--on both the corporate and consumer sides--in some real security.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
The new security threat is from Symantec products!
It's preloaded on new computers and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. Once you get the computer, it begs you to install it, if you do, god help you. If you change your mind about using norton, well... you've got a long night ahead of you, crack open a bottle of wine and fire up regedit.
And if you don't uninstall it, and let it lapse, it'll be peppering you with "renew norton!" for the next thousand years. Ditto with McAffee.
These cures are worse than the disease. At least a zombied computer isn't spitting up "Renew NOW" dialog boxes.
We've got an active threat going on within our corporate network, it's already been determined to be within an existing worm family, and we get this response from one of their techs:
"We do virus *detection*, not necessarily virus removal."
You're telling that crap to a Gold support customer, Symantec, and you expect those of us in the field to give a tin shit what your opinion is?
Word of advice: quit expressing opinions and start doing your goddamned job.