AU - Next Wave: Viruses that Cripple Cities?

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afr.com.au Thursday, August 10, 2000

Next: Viruses That Cripple Cities

By Helene Zampetakis

The next wave of viruses will attack wireless technology and affect any device connected to the network, from the mobile phone to the cab meter, creating an assault that will be capable of bringing down an entire city within hours.

According to Mr David Perry, public education director of the Tokyo-based anti-virus company Trend Micro, viruses are being spawned at a prolific rate to keep pace with new technology.

The new frontier would be mobile phones and palmtops connected to wireless application protocol and Bluetooth technologies which are expected to reside in 500 million devices by 2003, according to Nokia.

"What technologies such as WAP and Bluetooth do is speed up the ability to do damage."

Mr Perry, who was part of the US Government's President's Council team during the Y2K changeover, said that there were now 300 to 500 new viruses being created a month.

His company put out updates three or four times a day to fend off attacks.

While not all of these were "in the wild" viruses that made it into the public domain, there was scope for new breeds of viruses that would have a much more serious impact on global business.

Mr Perry cited the development of viruses that acted as corporate espionage agents by creating a trail of movement connecting corporate and government networks, and viruses that defrauded individuals by making their wireless devices dial 1900 numbers, with the hacker collecting the charges.

"The internet has elevated the virus from the level of nuisance a decade ago to global terrorism," Mr Perry said.

GartnerGroup has estimated that organisations spend collectively $US4.1 billion a year on anti-virus measures, while the International Computer Security Association valued the cost of purging corporate systems globally at $US11 billion.

To tackle this problem, the anti-virus industry has begun moving the perimeter of defence away from the desktop to the gateway.

Anti-virus companies were now developing solutions to block access to the desktop at the level of the internet service provider, the local email gateway or the network server.

"What we are now going to see is a move to managed service provider solutions away from the packaged software scenario," Mr Perry said.

http://www.afr.com.au/information/20000810/A59921-2000Aug9.html

-- (Dee360degree@aol.com), August 10, 2000


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