Worm_Grew.A Threat, Hype, or Dud?

By: Darren Miller


The Worm_Grew.A Virus Got A lot Of Attention


The 3rd has come and gone. What has been the real effect or
impact of the "WORM_GREW.A (Also know as Nyxem, BlackMal,
MyWife, and so on)" virus? For weeks there has been tons of
warnings, in the news, print, e-zines, you name the forum and it
has been a discussion topic. Current information indicates that
the WORM_GREW.A virus has not caused mass destruction as
promised or suspected. I'm sure some of those 600,000 or so
suspected infected computers were impacted, but who really knows
at this point.

Viruses Can Impact You In Various Ways


There is one thing I do know however; Even if the BlackMal virus
has not done as much physical damage as predicted, it has done a
good deal of indirect damage. Think about how much time
corporate technical people have spent preparing for the
possibilities, making sure their enterprise anti-virus solution
is functioning properly, the time devoted to discussing and
planning for disaster recovery in the event a direct impact is
realized. What about all the home and small business people
stressed about the doom looming over their computers head in the
form of a "possible" destructive and wide spread infection.

How Do You Know If Your Business Is Protected Against Viruses


A business associate of mine recently worked on a project in
which he performed a complete infrastructure upgrade for a
document / information heavy business. During the upgrade, he
found that the anti-virus solution they were using was not
functioning properly, had not updated its virus signatures for
eight months, and on top of this, their very expensive tape
backup solution had not been working for about as long. The
customer kept changing the tapes, but they were blank. Just
imagine what would have happened if they had not had this
upgrade done, and an effective anti-virus and tape backup
solution put back in place. If they had contracted this virus it
could have not only shut them down for a period of time, it very
well may have cost them huge financial losses or worse.

Virus Threat, Hype, or Somewhere in Between


Do I think this particular virus scare is a product of a real
threat, fueled by hype, or a dud? Quite frankly I think it has
been a little of all three. The threat was / is definitely real,
the hype was all over the media and other information outlets,
and as far as being a dud, if you analyze it using the equation
threat+hype= impact, maybe.

I think what really has set this virus apart from recent malware
/ threats, is its destructive capabilities. Many malware
developers have moved away from creating destructive worms and
viruses in favor of creating cash generating malware. There's no
money in it for them if they just blow up your system.

Conclusion


It's quite interesting, the parallel between how we deal with
threats and risks in our personal lives, and that of the
technology world. Many of us only prepare for a negative or
damaging event shortly before the event takes place. That is if
we have been warned with time to prepare. The bottom line is we
can never let our guard down. Consistency, persistence,
awareness, and preparedness need to be in the forefront of our
minds.

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Original URL (The Web version of the article)


http://www.defendingthenet.com/newsletters/Worm_Grew.A-Threat-Hyp
e-Or-Dud.htm

About the author:

Darren Miller is an Information Security Consultant with over
seventeen years experience. He has written many technology &
security articles, some of which have been published in
nationally circulated magazines & periodicals. If you would like
to contact Darren you can e-mail him at
Darren.Miller@defendingthenet.com. If you would like to know
more about computer security please visit us at http: