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Time waisted on viruses

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by topesblues

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With the last outbreak of the MyDoom virus I realized how much time is wasted because of viruses. Even though we have the latest updates and caught MyDoom before it infected us, I am still spending a lot of time answering questions and running virus scans for panicked office managers who think they are infected. Now granted it?s still a lot less time than if we would have been actually hit with it but its company time and money that should be spent doing other things. When and if they catch the person who wrote or started a virus like this do they make them pay any financial payments to companies that lost time and money because of it? If not they should! What is the average punishment handed down to these people?

34 replies

by wordworker

1) Hang the perpetrators by their ankles and feed them Ex-lax/chocolate oatmeal cookies for a week.

2) Put them in solitary confinement and pipe in the latest Britney Spears album over and over.

3) Lock them in a room with only reruns of Oprah on the TV.

4) Make them use their skills to hack into AlQaeda's network, then turn them over to the terrorists.

5) Have a lottery for I/T people, and the winners get to beat the snot out of the perpetrators using old keyboards and mice.

by generalist

For a non-violent punishment, have the virus writers make a personal apology, in the flesh, to each and every person affected by the virus they wrote. Until they do this, they are forbidden to operate anything capable of creating a computer virus or worm.

They have to spend at least twelve hours a day doing this until they have reached the end of their list of victims. If the victims have died of old age by the time they get to them, they have to apologize at the grave/memorial site of the victim.

It would only take the virus writer about twenty years to contact everyone IF an average of twelve victims per hour are contacted.

Of course, the odds of being able to do that over the long run are rather slim. They would have to spend some of their free time in transit.

by jardinier

Whilst I loved your suggestion, it would of course be impractical to carry it out.

So I would settle for a heavy fine -- one which would send the perpetrator into debt to meet, and a ban on using a computer for any purpose for, say 5 or 10 years.

by generalist

For those people who would prefer that the punishment be a little more physical, the virus writers should be paraded before each of their victims, hands tied behind their backs. The victims would have the choice of physically hitting the virus writer once OR demanding an apology.

Any damage done by the victim's first would be considered part of the punishment.

Subsequent hits would be considered assault BY the victim. A certain amount of protection is needed to maintain civility.

by maxwell edison

.
I've spent a fair amount of time the last few days sending out memos, addendums to the memos, researching, verifying antivirus updates were run, and so on, not to mention the individual discussions with various users. But hey, it's part of the job. And actually, I feel pretty good about it right now, because we've successfully prevented a couple of hundred infested emails from affecting our system. We were hit "full force", and we fended them off. Yea for us! Not only me, but all of the users as well. We were all on the ball on this one.

(knocking on wood...................)

by hal 9000

The only one that I did get a laugh out of was the one that is currently doing the rounds that infects Microsoft Windows and on the 1 Feb sends out a mass mailing DoS attack on SCO.

While it does no harm to the Windows OS's someone is certianly pissed with SCO.

Any idea why?

Col

by beermonster

Basically, sco have p1ssed of the linux community by claiming to 'own' a portion of the current linux code. I believe sco went so far as to produce an open letter detailing how much they expected linux users to pay them. You can get details at

http://news.com.com/2100-1016-1010569.html

or a (believe it or not) dukes of hazard analogy of the situation here

http://www.arie.org/doh/

Interesting that the Linux community chose the windows platform to launch the DOS from.....

by oz_media

I had a customer who asked me to go clean his PC, I did and he paid me accordingly.

Two days later he called me back and said that damn virus thing got me again. Once again I deleted it. NOTE: He had NO idea what he had opened to get it, even though his AV software gives immediate pop up when a file is opened.

After the third call, gratis of course as it was in my eyes unresolved, I found out why.

an email had been coming in from his brother with an infected attachment. Every time I cleaned up, he'd ophone his brother and ask him to resend the picture!

I didn;'t charge him, but did laugh as four hours later when I had driven all the way home, he called and asked why he couldn't click his icons.

I told him to change is wallpaper back to normal and open the folder I hid his icons in.:-)

And YOU guys think I'm mean!

by oldefar

I am still laughing at the thought of how many times he must have tried to fix the "problem" himself, and how many other users he must have called for ideas, before finally calling you again!

by oz_media

It took me four hours to get home from the site. The guy is one of those guys that will ring your phone off the hook so he doen't have my cell number just my home/office line.

But yeah, I did get him good didn't I!

He was actually so amused at the joke and wanting to do it to his partner that he never complained and laughed at the whole scene instead. Gotta love them laid back island types.

by hal 9000

Is when it hits the News as a hot new topic which causes everyone to panic. Generally we already know about these nasty little pieces of code and have got things under control but when the Media gets hold of the story generally a few days to a week latter all hell breaks loose adn we are over run with calls on how to disinfect the systems which we already know should be protected.

While I do not like these people one little bit they are a fact of life in the IT industry so we just have to learn to live with them and remember we are always playing catchup with them as after they release whatever it has to be found dismantled to find out what it does and then a fix writen for it. At least we expect to get caught so we apply quite stringent AV procedures and hopefully don't get caught with our pants down so to speak.

While I've never actually got an infection on any computer network that I've administered I have wasted hours checking all the units on a WAN just to make sure that they are clean after the media has presented its lattest doom and gloom story. Slammer was a very good example of this as we where unaffected but on the Monday morning I had the CEO come in and tear up me for not doing my job in protecting his computers from infection as he had seen a story on the weekend news and he just assumed that we had become victums of this lattest attack. No matter how much I told that we where unaffected we had to go over every unit just to make sure that there where no infections.

Now if we could keep the media away from these stories it would make our lives much simpler and for every virus that gets reported there must be another couple of thousand that are just ignored so we don't get the hassles about these as the people who are in charge and know nothing about IT don't know about them and do not come in and hassle us about them.

Now if only I could get these very same people not to open attachments from unknown sources it would make life much easier but they just see the attachmant and have to have a look see instead of ignoring it. But I do get a good laugh when the people higher up the totem pole bring in their home compouters which are infected and we have to clean them up. Previously we didn't have to do this but with MS new one step connection we now have to not only protect our WAN/LAN's but also any ones home computer who has access to the network from home so when there is any new hardware/software brought into the business we not only have to protect out units but everyone who has remote access and this generally means the Bosses computers.

Col

by topesblues

I think your right about people panicking when they see warnings about viruses on the TV. Our regional manager saw something on the news about MyDoom and called us when he saw the same message in his e-mail the next day. It was downright comical listening to him freak out on the phone when I opened it (knowing that our MacAfee was catching and cleaning it). ?Oh my god, his trying to open it. What the hell is he doing? It?s going to infect the whole office!? It was downright entertaining!

by dc_guy

If you leave your keys in your Jaguar with the engine running in a dark alley blowing exhaust into someone's bedroom window, and it's gone when you return, there are two doctrines that come into play: contributory negligence and attractive nuisance. Both of these doctrines apply in our case. Contributory negligence: Software is marketed with virtually no QA that would be acknowledged by any other type of engineer. We can complain when kids with too much free time find the weak spots, and we can punish them, but there will always be more kids. We need to punish the irresponsible corporations who refuse to adopt process improvement strategies that would make their software better AND quicker to market. Attractive nuisance: These kids with too much free time hear every adult in America complaining about their software and the vendors who charge a fee to become alpha test sites. Finding the security weaknesses is simply too interesting and too much fun to pass up. And quite a few of them are convinced that they're actually helping us by turning poorly-built software into front-page news. Ya know, I'm not so sure they're wrong about that! Start interviewing IT managers and ask if they practice risk analysis, requirements management, code inspections, full-software-life-cycle process improvement, and if their schedules are driven by realistic estimates from software professionals -- or by checks written by the mouth of a marketeer to be cashed by the backside of a developer. Every time you get the wrong answer, that is the person who should be subjected to the creative therapy and rehabilitation treatments that have been suggested above.

by wordworker

Wow, what a great argument. Thank you for not making it a Microsoft-bashing thing since they're not the only company not doing adequate QA on their products. It's hard to argue that getting into someplace you're not supposed to go isn't a temptation. I guess what bothers me is that it's just as easy not to exploit a security weakness as it is to do damage at will. I mean, these same kids would never think of pouring sugar into the gas tanks of cars whose gas tank covers don't lock, would they? Or throw rocks off bridges into the windshields of innocent drivers-by? Oops guess I answered my own question...

by dc_guy

Not all e-intruders are kids. The worst of them are adults with a specific purpose, like the identity thieves or those who use your computer to build a massive multiprocessor for porn distribution. As for the kids, it's still not the same people. The ones who are out on the streets and overpasses looking for trouble are not the ones who are holed up their rooms playing videogames and writing Java. I'm sure they consider themselves peaceful people and think violence and vandalism require way too much time outdoors. To the extent that they're not mature enough to understand the universe (sixty lashes to their parents for that), they can't make the connection between bringing down a website, a company losing business, and mommy losing her job. If you think it's easier to resist temptation than to succumb to it, try harder to envision what it's like to be an alienated kid who is called a freak by everyone at school, is smarter than many of his teachers, spends many nights home alone because mommy threw daddy out over some incomprehensible disagreement and now she has to work two jobs, and gets the only validation of his identity and existence through his computer.

by hal 9000

You are totally correct in you're observation and yes it is the software vendors and IT managers responsibility to secure their systems even if we didn't have these kids around we would still have to worry about our competitors attempting to break into our systems and download our data.

In a way these kids may be doing us a favour as even 5 years ago network security was not taken as serriously as it is today and no doubt in 5 years time the security will be far better than it currently is now.

Col

by dc_guy

If I'm going to follow the "chain of command" and blame parents for the actions of their children (which we must nonetheless continue to do to avoid chaos since children have such shallow pockets), then I have to go higher up the chain and nail the government. Since 1933, it has been spreading the doctrine that no one is responsible for the consequences of their own choices. We are on the verge of having an entire population who have always lived in that culture. All of our institutions are firmly in the hands of people who know no other way. Perhaps the internet's effect of decentralizing decision making, while at the same time making consequences much more immediate, will force us all to build some new synapses and become reacquainted with reality.

by hal 9000

But even the Internet is begining to see the PC crowd start to invade it and forcing us to modifiy what we may want to post so we are always trying not to step on anyones toes and start a fight over something that was a cultural misunderstanding.

Col

by oz_media

`I think that your points are accurate for a specific demographic of kids. Many hackers and virus writers are just looking to cause restruction.

Now this may be well due to upbringing, alienation etc. but we must also see that this child has a computer and probably s decent one too if they are writing such code as anything else would seem inadequate. There are so many reasons why kids do what they do, boredom is a biggie, but we must stop blaming the parents for every action of a child and start holding the children responsible IN ADDITION to the parents.

Kids don't give a damn, especially if they resent a parent. If they were also risking personal implication and it was widely known that they will be prosecuted, maybe they would think twice.

It is still the engineers responsibility to ensure security if they are selling you a product that goes to your home and installe on your family's PC investment. Failing to secure their code is in effect, not caring about the customer.

I get personally poissed off when I am attacked, haven't been hit with a virus or trojan (personally) in well over a year (knock on keyboard) but when I do, I take personal offense toward the engineer who failed to secude software i paid good money for and installed in my notebook which I also paid good money for (if you call Canadian money GOOD instead or PRETTY).

by hal 9000

You can not blame the parents because I think that the US like over here has continually erroded Parents rights to displine their kids. If you are seen smacking a kid the Welfare Agencies get involved and take the kid away from you and list you as a "Bad Parent" but at the very same time they expect you to extend some form of control over you're children and then send in Social Workers to their schools to tell them their rights but not their responsibilities.

After all a kid would never tell lies would they? Just ask any Social Worker this question most of which are fresh out of Uni or whatever it is in whatever country is involved and they will insist that all kids are honest and never tell any lies pitty that the parents know better.

Over here we have a support allowence for children who can not live with their parents and all they have to do is tell the Social Worker that the parent/s are violent so the parents are never approched as the Social Worker may come under attack. Teh money is commonly known by those involved as the "Running Away From Home Allowence."

So you have the option of having you're kids taken away because you actually disipline them and there have been cases over here where unborn children have had "Care and Protection Orders" placed on them and the moment that they are born they are spirited away y the agiences and in most cases it is based on stories told to the Social Workers by a disenfranchised child who has their nose put out because mommy is pregnant and can not spend as much time with them as she previously did.

Col

by oz_media

I sail to Australia in early June and claim refurgee status. (I needed to get away from the barbaric Canadian population)

You adopt me and I claim "running away from home allowance" Oz and Colin get a few Fosters and sit on the beach all day, laughing at our governments and you know who that is trying to run that other country!

by hal 9000

Bought the rights to SCO's Unix it only seems a natural place to start and breaking into Windows is so easy or so I'm told constantly by Microsoft who keep updating us all with the lattest fixes to their OS.

But seriously if Microsoft is about to launch a version of Unix onto the market they would almost have the whole computer industry covered so Linux would be a real threat to them, I can see just why Microsoft doesn't want any more Linux as it would be competition that would be hard to live with.

Now if only Microsoft had Accounting and AV apps they would just about cover the entire industry.

Interesting thought isn't it?

Col

by hal 9000

You'll be OK otherwise our current Federal Government is likely to lock up up in a "Dentention Centre" with all the other unwanted people and we are susposed to be a caring country after all that is what Little Johny Rotten constantly tells me about the country that he runs!

by hal 9000

It got really interesting today when the CEO tried to log onto the system it wasn't there and he had just seen the lattest Doom and Gloom Computer Virus story on the news so he imediate reaction was that we had been taken down by this so he was on the phone complaining.

He really should have known better as we had a severe Thunder Storm several days ago which bought down 300 K of power lines so we've been without mains power for 3 days and when the UPS capacity got down to 30% I ordered all unnecessary units shut down which included his login computer.

He had no power at home so just moved to a Hotel with its own generators so along with his LT he thought he could continue to work but without thinking that we just may have a few problems without any power.

But after he setteled down I think that the Solar Installation that I asked for a few months ago might be forthcomming far sooner than I ever expected so thank "GOD" for the Lattest Virus Attack we are now going to get our own power generation facilities and we will never have this trouble again. The desile Generator was running low on fuel and we couldn't find any place where we could pump some more so to save what we had available it was only run for short periods to recharge the UPS's while everything else was turned off.

But all I can say is here comes the Sun and by to that stinking generator which filled our rooms with fumes.

by hal 9000

One of my old bosses is now selling Sonnenschein Solar {yes that is the right spelling and not a typo} instalations which comprise of a Solar Pannel array and Jell {Dryfit} batteries and totally over the top inverters. While they will not run the AC and all the building I'm only interested in keeping the "Core" computers running when something adverse like this happens hopefully not again. And they do not require much room with little maintance costs. Like clean off the solar cells every so often and it is recomended to replace the batteries every 5-8 years. But what I'm looking at is suficent for my needs and will provide 5000 KVA so its all that I need.

But then again I still remember the 26 January 1974 when we had a small amount of flooding here like half the city underwater and the main dam that supplies water here overflowing so they had to open the spillways full to keep the dam intact as there was 18 inches of water running over the top of the wall after they opened the spilways and they where happy about that because the water level dropped by 6 inches and stayed at that level.

At that time I was far more Civic Concious and a member of the "State Emergency Services" which meant we got called out to all the nasty jobs. I can still remember being in a power boat that was it think a 15 footer with a 200 Mercruse outboard that would pull 60 knots and we where going backwards down Melbourne Street in the main flow at full power. It was a fun time and I've grown up since then as well.

But what is worse is the guy I used to work for was then and still now under the impression that I actually know what I'm doing and no matter how much I tell him otherwise he just refuses to believe me.

But then again I'm still trying to work out just how he conned me into working there in the first place that was 18 years ago now and I still don't know. I can remember going in there to help them out with a problem that only required about 10 minutes to fix and I never left for about 5 years and I still don't quite know just how that happened. What I do remember is that they where the Australian Distributers of a product and I was working for a dealer at the time and just to keep on the good side of them when they had a problem I offered to help them out {A bit like I scratch you're back and you sratch mine when required} but it was honestly only an attempt to stay on the good side of them so that when I got a problem they would help me out it was nothing more than that. But somehow I ended up working there as Australian Service Manager and was directly responsible for all the dealer training and such like.

While I did love the job it was always a bit of a downer as you would never know where you would be that night or latter that day as you could be called out at a moments notice so I always had a packed suitcase in the workshop.

Anyway enough off topic ranting for now I'll send you the detaiuls if you're interested.

Col

by oldefar

I think there is a clear distinction between the message and the delivery. However, it seems the PC flag gets waved whenever someone is called for being offensive in their delivery.

by oz_media

Now that I read you post, I think that your reaction to someone 'being offensive in their delivery' is exactly what PC means, and also the reason why some are seen as PC extremists while others are quite lax.

It is all relative in comparisson to how easily offended someone is or how sensitive they are. Just as people went from being 'Old' to 'Pensioners', to 'Senior Citizens', now it is considered being 'Politicaly Correct' instead of being overly sensitive or easily upset.

The burden is taken off of people to 'accept it' and put on the speaker to be careful what one says. I believe in free speech, I will say what I want and when I want, within reason of what I believe to be acceptable. This may be a comfortable level for some to accept but others find it crass or rude. Biting tongue now so I will leave it at that.

I don't think being offensive or delivery are the variant at all, more how sensitive or politically correct the listener is.

by hal 9000

As I still believe that it is "Good Manners" to open doors for women and offer them seats and the like but I did get a complaint of Sexual Harasment leveled against me because I opened a door for a woman.

So I no longer know what is considered as PC and where "Good Manners" start to become Sexual Harasment.

But then again now I own my own company I no longer care either.

Col

by oldefar

I was only thinking in terms of the Internet, and more particular discussion forums like this one. I believed some "official" TR posts and possibly some TR emails to particular individuals triggered the comments about PC.

Of course you are correct that some individuals raise a PC flag over nothing. I would imagine your sexual harrassment complaint was tossed out as quick as it was made if there was nothing more than implied sexism for holding the door open for a woman.

I can only base my perception on those posts I have read, but it seemed to me the posts were chastised less for what was said than for how it was said. Personal attacks, implied threats, and trading insults hardly constitutes a discussion. At times some threads show all the traits of a schoolyard shouting match.

Seems to me that when someone begins personal attacks, uses insults or vulgarities, and generally tries to "win" a discussion by being the "loudest" they end up failing to persuade anyone and make it harder in the future to have anyone consider their perhaps legitimate point of view. After all, to support their position could result in being associated with them, and that often is too high a price in prestige to pay.

by fluxit

I think the punishment is if proven guilty and an American citizen is a fine and imprisonment. It is difficult to trace down and id these people with the current architecture. Additionally, many of them are foreign nationals.

Not too long ago they busted a high school kid for modifying a worm virus and re-introducing it. I never heard his punishment.

As far as architecture goes there needs to be a authenticating signature when logging into the internet as with the PKI and CaC cards for all logins. Unfortunately, there are too many insertion points such as cybercafes. Additionally, man-the-middle attacks can be used to interject malicious code covertly.

by lcampbell

ALL email with an attachment is Quarantined. Users must "sign out" any incoming attachment they wish released to their mailbox. Therefore, effectivly taking full responsiblity for any adverse effects on the network.
Of course, virus' are automatically deleted. Everything else is considered in our filters as spam.'
Simple, and stops the users from opening unknown attachments (and takes the heat off IT if anything bad is released)

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