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From Michaelangelo To Anti-Scam Scamming
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-03-07
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
It has been 15 years since a virus dubbed Michaelangelo first brought the threat of viruses to the computer-using public. The aims of virus writers have changed since then, but some of the criminals behind illicit computer activities haven't become any smarter.
 | | From Michaelangelo To Anti-Scam Scamming |  |
The virus that received the name Michaelangelo had been developed to go off on March 6 every year. When it made headlines in 1992, no other virus had attracted so much attention.
McAfee researcher Francois Paget noted this anniversary on the Avert Labs blog. Once upon a time, antivirus researchers knew of a thousand viruses in the world.
These days, viruses have variants, and their numbers alone would make a 1992 investigator shriek at high volume.
Michaelangelo hit at least a dozen companies pretty hard in 1992, wiping out data in their systems and causing thousands of dollars in damages.
Keep in mind that in 1992, the World Wide Web had not yet become what it is today. Michaelangelo spread through the shipments of infected computer products, not by clicking on malicious links.
Modern virus writers who could achieve this wouldn't bother with destroying information. Instead, their aims would be financial, and would attempt to gather information discreetly and pass it back to the criminals.
Scammers pose as anti-scammers: If more criminals were as clueless as the dopes who sent an "anti-scam" scam to Eric Chien at Symantec, there may be fewer of them to bother the rest of us.
Symantec is of course a security company, and well-suited to comment on such idiocy:
I recently received an email supposedly from the Anti-Scam Department of the British Secret Intelligence Service. They sent me an email because apparently my "email address signaled to our computer database today, with strong indication that you currently MIGHT be in a business transaction where you are a SCAM VICTIM unknowingly." Oh no!
Oh no indeed. Maybe this will be the next great comedy sketch: "we have scams, anti-scams, anti-scam scams, anti-anti-scamming scamming scams, etc."
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Tags: Michaelangelo, Virus, Anti-Scam, Email, Scams
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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