Worm attacks: enterprises need to remain on guard in 2004

Last week, inboxes across the world have been flooded with the mass mailing worm MyDoom, with analysts and security experts touting this worm to be more destructive, costly and widespread than last year's SoBig virus. This is an early signal to enterprises that 2004 will be yet another year of global attacks. MyDoom, which was seemingly created to attack the SCO Group, will launch a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the group's website on 1 February. While, in this instance, SCO Group will be able to negate this by changing its IP address. It has, however, still worried SCO enough to offer a $250,000 reward for the capture and arrest of the author of the virus. This latest attack illustrates that the next generation of viruses will be capable of attacking on multiple fronts. MyDoom has not borrowed spammer techniques, and for this reason, is eluding anti-spam filters and has the ability to infiltrate systems in a more destructive and evasive manner.

According to Paul Mockapetris, DNS inventor and Chief Scientist at Nominum, this latest virus outbreak highlights the ongoing need for enterprises to be vigilant, as hackers become more security-sophisticated in their approaches. There are methods available to handle worms and to deflect DDoS attacks but IT decision-makers need to be deploying these in preparation for the next attack which is only around the corner.

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