The British government wants to halve the cost of Internet access by
2002—much to the chagrin of British Telecom—as well as giving all
schoolchildren the chance to use PCs. All very laudable, you might think, but
anti-virus software company Sophos (www.sophos.com) warned last week that a
sudden explosion of Net newbies might actually create an escalation in computer
virus attacks. How so? Well, they reason that we ought to be adding an ethical
dimension to IT teaching. “We need to stop children spreading viruses because
they think it’s cool, like stealing apples from an orchard,” warns Graham
Cluley, a technologist with Sophos.
While virus-busters may be accused of exaggerating the problem, viruses
should be taken seriously. Last year, David Smith admitted that he had written
and distributed the Melissa virus which, once on a PC, automatically e-mailed
itself to the first 50 people in victims’ Microsoft Outlook address lists.
Within days, Melissa had infected 1 million PCs and caused $80 million of
damage in the US alone. Last Friday, Smith’s sentencing hearing was delayed
until May by the Monmouth County Superior Court in New Jersey.
Viruses in e-mail often contain program code, for instance in a “macro”
routine. When security specialist Star Internet (www.star.co.uk) monitored
e-mails through a server they found that 1 in 1000 was infected. The number will
continue to grow as people attach gimmicky executable files to simple text
messages. Another anti-virus software vendor called Panda Software
(www.pandasoftware.co.uk) dubs this “cult of the attachment” an “electronic plague”.
The firm estimates that 1 in 5 PC users has no protective software, and most of
those who have it do not update it to catch any of the 6000 new viruses
unleashed each month. Sophos has practical advice on protecting the contents of
your hard disc at www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/safehex.html.
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