Email problems getting so big

August 29, 2003
 
You may remember some of my other rantings over the months, and my suspicions that the spammers have joined forces with the virus/worm programmers. Amid much news last week of the latest episode in the computer virus/worm saga, at least several of the virus/worm trackers are beginning to agree with my suspicions.
      Last week a number of virus experts including Symantec confirmed that the latest outbreak of the W32.Sobig worm is not necessarily designed to vandalize anyone's system, but to gather email addresses for spammers. Symantec reports that

> The worm sends a notification to its author when a host
> is infected and listens on port 61282 for a connection.

      Note also that it doesn't just contaminate email, but IRC, ICQ as well. So filesharing services like KaZaA and LimeWire are affected as carriers. You can catch up with the W32.Sobig.F@mm news at the Symantec web site.
      Back in January and February there was another wide-spread infection of this worm, and around mid March, the level of spam increased by about 30%. It has resurfaced four times, and each time the spam flow has increased -- suggesting the two events are related.
      I've suspected that if the spam and virus communities ever get together it would have serious ramifications. I think now we're moving in that direction. This may not be a "virus" at all -- but rather a new breed of email harvester agent.
      CBS News reported that Sobig.F attacks Windows users via e-mail and file-sharing networks and deposits a Trojan horse, or hacker back door, that can be used to turn victims' PCs into senders of spam e-mail. Sobig.F sends itself out to names found in its victim's address books and will use one of these names to forge a return address.
      Tech News Online quotes Fred Schneider, director of the Information Assurance Institute at Cornell University saying:

"There's nothing stopping someone from taking Blaster or Sobig.F and making it delete all your files or change software on your computer so it no longer works. We're getting dangerously close to a world where hostile viruses are much more prevalent."

Each time the worm appears, it spreads quicker and more completely than its predecessor. And although they have been harmless so far, it suggests the author is merely testing the options, and fine-tuning the code -- a "proof of concept" experiment of sorts. In light of the recent black-out in the north east, and numerous reports of airline slow-downs and other computer network problems, I'm wondering where this "proof of concept" is going.
      Sooner or later Microsoft needs to wake up and realize the public won't stand for such sloppy programming much longer. Consumers will eventually realize there is a problem that needs immediate attention. As for the spam epidemic, it will only get bigger and bigger until some catastrophic consumer backlash occurs. And, as long as the worm programmers can piggyback their venom on spam, we've got very big problems.
      Until there is still penalties for such criminal activities, things will get worse. But you can help. Contact your legislative representative and urge them to support HR 2214 bill in Congress. It's the anti-spam bill that has the best chance of making it into the Federal code. See: http://www.user-groups.net/safenet/ for details about proposed legislation and how to contact your legislators.
 

Until next time, thanks for reading

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