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Here a virus, there a virus -- everywhere a virus
Mike Hudack
Editor-in-Chief
It seems that every few weeks, a new worm or virus comes out thatīs expected to cast a plague on the House of Computer. First, at least of the recent ones, there was Melissa. Then there was Chernobyl, and now thereīs ExploreZip. Are these virii really all the more common now, or is it just that in our increasingly wired world the mainstream media is paying more attention? After all, on CNN.com -- where every visitor has a computer -- the interested are going to be in the majority.
All in all, the proliferation of virii and their effects on mainstream society has increased -- but only because the world is so much more connected now. In the past, a virus would spread from bulletin board to bulletin board or floppy disk to floppy disk -- now a simple e-mail message can do the work of so many pieces of plastic. Victims, as well, are simply more common -- the vast majority of offices and about half of the people in the United States use computers, many connected to the Internet.
This said, itīs a logical step forwards to say that whether or not the volume of virii have increased, their impact and propogation have phenominally. A virus such as Melissa, however, isnīt seen too often. The last major event comporable to it would be the famous Morris Worm of `88, in which hundreds of Internet mail servers were DoSīd to death. Back then, 405 downed servers was a phenomenal number -- the Internet was smaller. Nowadays, itīs still a large number... but not quite so amazing.
Nowadays, the most (and pretty much only) effective method of virus protection is an anti-virus product. Too many people donīt use them, though -- often because of their cost in these days of open source and freely distributed software.
All in all, virii have become more common as distribution methods become more sophisticated. At the same time, public interest in virii has increased, forcing the media to cover the problem ever closer. Virii numbers havenīt really increased, though. |
