Posted on 10/19/2007 3:22:15 PM PDT by Swordmaker
"The Storm worm first appeared at the beginning of the year... Although it's most commonly called a worm, Storm is really more: a worm, a Trojan horse and a bot all rolled into one. It's also the most successful example we have of a new breed of worm, and I've seen estimates that between 1 million and 50 million [Windows] computers have been infected worldwide," Bruce Schneier reports for Wired.
"Worms like Storm are written by hackers looking for profit, and they're different. These worms spread more subtly, without making noise. Symptoms don't appear immediately, and an infected computer can sit dormant for a long time. If it were a disease, it would be more like syphilis, whose symptoms may be mild or disappear altogether, but which will eventually come back years later and eat your brain," Schneier reports.
;Storm has been around for almost a year, and the antivirus companies are pretty much powerless to do anything about it. Inoculating infected machines individually is simply not going to work, and I can't imagine forcing ISPs to quarantine infected hosts. A quarantine wouldn't work in any case: Storm's creators could easily design another worm -- and we know that users can't keep themselves from clicking on enticing attachments and links," Schneier reports.
"Redesigning the Microsoft Windows operating system would work, but that's ridiculous to even suggest," Schneier reports.
"Oddly enough, Storm isn't doing much, so far, except gathering strength. Aside from continuing to infect other Windows machines and attacking particular sites that are attacking it, Storm has only been implicated in some pump-and-dump stock scams. There are rumors that Storm is leased out to other criminal groups. Other than that, nothing," Schneier reports. "Personally, I'm worried about what Storm's creators are planning for Phase II."
Full article here.
I bought a new laptop last February but when this one dies in several years I’m going to get a Mac!
Your link goes to a different article. And the excerpt you give does not explain this well. There is no technical information in it. I would say that this is just a Mac advertisement.
Revel, I wanted to post the article but we are not allowed to post articles from that source on FR so the link to the real article is st the bottom of the article I can post. Try clicking on the one thst says “here” at the end of the article above.
Swordmaker
Oops! You are right! It does link incorrectly. I’ll try and fix it when I get home. Try using the link on the macdailynews article linked at the top. Sorry about that.
I'd say it's more of a news report warning about millions of Microsoft Windows computers that have been infected with yet another virus/worm/trojan horse/zombie botnet. It's like a ticking time bomb. Who knows when it will explode?
For the sake of comparison, here is a real advertisement that Apple released today for the new operating system that is coming next week -
Mac OS X Leopard. A guided tour.
Good luck to all of the Windows users.
I think that is exactly the story were the excerpt link above leads to. So I am glad that you agree that it is an advertisement.
OK thanks.
Thank you. It makes a whole lot more sense now. I wish it got more into what software flaws make it possible to pick this up. What versions of windows, what browsers and email programs- things like that. The article is very vague on things like that.
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