Virus Epidemic

[shahani]

Anyone noticed how these virus threats come in cycles? Like the recent two vius threats.

Before that nothing major happened.

Is there a method to this madness?

Or just random events that happen when kids get bored?

Whatever the reasons/explanations, these viri attacks do appear like epidemics -----no pun intended

[agathodaimon]

What.... Epidemic has a virus problem??

[Siliconjunkie]

I wouldnt say nothing major happened. SQL Slammer hit alot of folks hard, before that it was Code Red/Blue. Seems fairly steady to me.

[nukes]

Blaster was just the result of a backdoor that MS built in getting found. Other Virii tend to go more on AV software being up-to-date. Sobig.f has considerable measures in place to avoid detection, and has a really good infection mechanism. It will die down once people wake up and start updating their virus software more often. It should be done weekly at the very minimum, preferably daily.
But yes, they do tend to go in cycles. Or rather they just keep going.

[shahani]

Well, maybe the last two attacks got more publicity due to their epidemic nature of spreading.

But still seems to me that there is a cycle in these things.

[agathodaimon]

yeah, I got kinda lazy when I had the hardware firewall on my router... But after I stopped using the router, I didn't get myself any A/V or Firewall programs... Then I got a virus.
I've learned my lesson now.

But they DO seem to come and go in cycles... At least to me they do.

[Siliconjunkie]

Blaster was just the result of a backdoor that MS built in getting found.

Anything to back that accusation up? Sounds like you think MS put it there for the purpose of them getting in i.e. backdoor

[shahani]

My point is there are viri and there are viri.

When some virus spreads like an Epidemic, then it becomes known. These are cyclical occurances IMHO, to paraphrase member Epidemic, and occur towards end of sumemr when kids are bored stiff.

[Siliconjunkie]

There could be some truth to the timing. Never really thought about it. I would guess that symantec or someone has stats on things like this.

[nukes]

Originally posted by Siliconjunkie

Anything to back that accusation up? Sounds like you think MS put it there for the purpose of them getting in i.e. backdoor

That's exactly what I think.
Its too big a coincedence for me to just discard. Especially as they altered the EULA to windows to allow them to take advantage of such a backdoor, and a few other things about this:
1. Its in ALL 32-bit versions of windows.
2. It hsan't been found by Microsoft, even after they've supposedly doubled their efforts on the security front.
3. It was found by a third party testing lab, not MS, and if they hadn't released info on it, it would still be a secret now.
4. A hole like this is very critical and a subsytem designed for running code on remote machines should be tested and locked down properly.
5. Gibson warned about MS leaving all the ports open in Windows, complained to MS, and they just told him to get stuffed.
6. Its even in the newest version of windows, which was supposed to be hardened a lot.
In addition to these, there have been a number of other things MS did that make me wonder:
1. The Office97 and 2k 'feature' of saving the CPU id code and the MAC address of your network card in every single document created.
2. The 'Help and Support' flaw in windows, which for those of you who didn't know, was a wizard claiming to update your drivers, and send MS all the ones you're currently using, and in fact ended up formatting the hard drive.
(This one especially is inexcusable as this could be activated by a simple link on a webpage, it didn't need any code to be run etc, its just there in WinXP, and fixed with no official statment in SP1, with no seperate patch availiable)
There's lots more, but I can't be bothered typing as its getting late, and by this point you'll either understand what I'm saying or call me a lunatic. hopefully this will give you something to think about before you install windows on your next PC.