In computer news this week, 02/04/2003

Computer Viruses and why they won't go away ...

Computer viruses infiltrated the pc world back in the mid 1980's, brought to American by tourists who had bought illegal software programs in Europe, and most of the virus infections were from people sharing floppy disks. There actually was a Bulgarian virus factory at the time; Bulgarians who had received computer programming training from their government, but then they found there were no jobs, so they unleashed their wrath by writing viruses against the rich Americans.

Virus were also passed by people using the computer bulletin board systems of that time, where again some people traded illegal copies of software electronically. Viruses spread very slowly in the old days, from person to person.

The earliest antivirus software programs of that time worked by searching for recognized pieces of known virus code, and then deleting that program. In some instances a completely safe program that just happened to have similar code got erased.

I personally watched the number of known computer viruses grow from 1, to several, to the teens, to hundreds, and now of course to thousands and growing daily.

Today most people get infected with computer viruses through their internet connections and email messages. Viruses spread at the speed of electronic communication today, and if a new virus gets unleashed on the internet one morning, it can effect hundreds of thousands or even millions of people that same day.

Computer viruses have been estimated to cost American businesses billions of dollars a year in the problems they cause, and in virus prevention procedures.

Antivirus software today is a lot more sophisticated, but it is still dependent on being updated daily to keep up with assault of new viruses. Unfortunately the majority of people who have an antivirus program don't keep it updated, creating a horrible false sense of security with disasterous consequences.

And the most startling fact related to computer viruses today - many of them are created by young kids who don't know how to program !!

Here we learn the new internet term "Script Kiddies". Kids who go to pirate sites on the internet - and there are thousands of them - and download do-it-yourself-designer virus creation kits. Anybody with a computer and internet access can do this.

I've done it to see how they work. You download a virus kit and run it. It asks you several questions, like what group of people would you like to infect - and what programs you want to attack and infect - how about Outlook email - everyone else does so why not you? And Voila - you have a new virus to unleash on the world !

You may be on the cover of Time, Newsweek, and your chances of going to jail are slim.

That's because there's no international antivirus laws or organizations to enforce the laws. The kid who unleashed the Anna Kournikova virus is now highly respected as a computer guru and was given a job in his local government. The junior college kid who released the I love You virus in the Phillipines still claims his innocence, and has never been prosecuted.

Any bored virus writer can just go to the Microsoft site, review the security bulletins of known vulnerabilities in Microsoft programs and operating systems, and attack these vulnerabilities.

Computer viruses are totally out of control. The only thing you can do is use antivirus software, update it daily, and always have a backup.

The odds are stacked against you, and getting worse.

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 624-7230