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Writing Viruses, Good For Your Career?
Jeremy L. Muncy
Staff Writer
2004-09-20
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The 18-year-old author of the Sasser virus, and possibly the Netsky virus, has been offered a job by the German firewall company Securepoint. Does this seem like a reward to anyone else?
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The company might need to hold Sven's position for a few months, maybe even years. He is currently facing charges which include data manipulation and computer sabotage, which could put him in jail for up to five years.
"The company that has hired him has an interesting challenge ahead reassuring the media and its customers that it has not set a precedent by 'rewarding' those who may have only months before been launching attacks against innocent computer systems", said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at antivirus firm Sophos.
This sends out a real "positive" message; if you author malicious code there could be a job in it for you.
Cisco Code Theft Culprit Has Been Arrested. A 20-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the theft of Cisco's source code.
The theft was discovered back in May when 800 megabytes of the Internetwork Operating System (IOS) was discovered on a Russian website. IOS is used in all of Cisco's routing products.
"We are continuing to cooperate with law enforcement agencies on this matter," a Cisco representative said Friday. "And we are encouraged that an arrest has been made. We view the arrest as what will likely be one of many steps in this matter. We will take every measure to protect our intellectual property."
The suspect was released on bail and is scheduled to appear before authorities in a London police station in November.
Window's PC's Hit Hard At Beginning Of 2004. A survey of Internet vulnerabilities, being released today, shows a huge jump in attacks against Windows based PC's during the first six months of 2004.
The report shows from January 1 to June 30 there were at least 1,237 newly discovered software vulnerabilities, or flaws that could compromise security. Roughly, this means 48 new vulnerabilities a week were discovered.
"The authors are changing their methods," said Alfred Huger, senior director of engineering for security response at Symantec. "We saw a dramatic increase in electronic commerce attacks."
The data collected for this data was collected prior to the release of Microsoft's SP2.
Summit Held For Cybercrime Discussion. In Strasbourg, France, attendees from governments, police forces and businesses around the world are meeting to discuss the ratification of the Council of Europe's Cybercrime Convention.
Some governments are wary of potentially being required to make data on their citizens available to other governments. In 2002, the United States announced it wouldn't release this information, which would go against the United States Constitution.
There was double the number of Internet users from 1999 to 2002, according to a Council of Europe report. "Societies need to be protected against cybercrime," the report said. "But there must be freedom to use and develop information and communication technologies properly, and a guarantee that people can be free to express themselves."
Cybercrime issues to be discussed are fraud, copyright, and child pornography.
About the Author:
Jeremy Muncy is the editor of http://www.SecurityProNews.com.
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