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Was Blaster Variant Sentence Too Light?
Chris Richardson
Contributing Writer
2005-02-02
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Last week, the state of Minnesota sentenced Jeffrey Lee Parson, author of the Blaster worm variant responsible for thousands of infections. However, there is a section of the public who feel his sentence was too light. Considering the denial-of-service attacks initiated by Parson's version of the Blaster worm, they may have a legitimate argument.
 | | Did The Blaster Author Get Appropriate Punishment? |  |
Other security stories of interest have to do with Nokia and the release of their small business-level network security platform. Microsoft is also making security news as usual. This week, the guys from Redmond are responding to possible vulnerabilities in Service Pack 2.
Was The Parson Sentence Severe Enough?
Jeffrey Parson was sentenced for authoring and releasing a variant of the Blaster worm. Internet security specialists at Sophos.com performed a survey of 250 business-level PC users to gauge their reaction to Parson's sentence. According to Sophos:
53% believe that last week's sentencing of Jeffrey Lee Parson, the teenager found guilty of writing and distributing the Blaster-B Internet worm, was not harsh enough.
A further 33% of respondents agreed with the US State District Court's decision to sentence Parson to 18 months in prison. Just 14% felt this jail sentence was too severe.
57% of those surveyed believed a prison term was the most appropriate sentence for anyone who writes and distributes a virus. 12% stated that community service was the most suitable punishment…
Should a person responsible for malicious programs face sterner punishments? Perhaps the sentence should factor in the "effectiveness" of the attack.
Nokia Launches Small Business-level Security Platform
With the scope of security risks and threats being so large, innovation and contributions from the corporate tech sector are always welcome. With this in mind, Nokia, famous for their mobile phone technology, introduced 2 small business-sized network security platforms, the IP260 and IP265. According to the Swedish company:
The disk-based Nokia IP260 and the diskless Nokia IP265 introduce new capabilities and higher levels of performance with 512MB of available RAM and an on-board encryption chip to accelerate encrypted traffic. The new security platforms are designed for small to mid-sized enterprises and remote or satellite offices that need a low-cost, complete Nokia IPSO platform that delivers robust firewall and VPN performance. The half-width 1RU size enables customers to rack-mount these units side by side…
For more information, check Nokia.
Microsoft Defends Service Pack 2
Being the dominant figure in operating systems and Internet browsing makes you the number target for malicious programmers, this is something Microsoft is quite familiar with.
Thanks to a report issued by Russian security firm Positive Technologies detailing a security flaw in SP2, Microsoft has to defend their product again. TechWorld.com reports,
Positive published a patch for the hole, which could allow an attacker to bypass SP2's Data Execution Protection (DEP), after waiting for more than a month for a Microsoft response, it said.
But Microsoft has now said that while it is investigating Positive's findings, an initial examination showed the bypass was "not a security vulnerability".
"An attacker cannot use this method by itself to attempt to run malicious code on a user's system. There is no attack that (utilizes) this, and customers are not at risk from the situation," Microsoft said in a statement.
Top Ten Viruses and Hoaxes for January 2005
Sophos.com has released a list of the 10 viruses and hoaxes that caused the most problems for the January 2005.
Top Ten Viruses:
Top Ten Hoaxes:
Until next week, keep your hardware safe. Remember to stay up to date on virus definitions, while frequently taking anti-spyware precautions.
About the Author:
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.
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