The SCARE REPORT
My Commentary
I want to say that I’m very upset with this 60 minutes report. They have clearly PLAYED ON EMOTIONS to SCARE PEOPLE! Some people would say, “well that’s great for people in the computer business.” NO, IT NEVER IS! Fear in the masses ends up in HORRIBLE LEGISLATION! I’m afraid that if this is not kept in check, the innovation of our industry could be stifled to the point that it will cost our entire society greatly!
Yes, there are very talented people in the computer industry that are completely driven by greed to hurt others for their gains. They have the power to inflict their pain on a global scale with our current infrastructure. On the other end of that scale are a LOT MORE people that enjoy technology and want to share their joy with others. The path that my life has taken me allows me to identify countless opportunities to hurt others. I use this knowledge to arm people with enough of a defense to keep these risks at bay.
Computer security today is NOT ABSOLUTE! I’m not going to claim enough arrogance to say that a completely secure computer [or network] can be created today that connects to the internet. Our technology today is orders of magnitude more complex than one person can feasibly understand in an entire lifetime. Computer security today must be viewed as an exercise in risk management. Simple and cost affective solutions can be crafted today with the same exciting advanced technology. One product that I use is Untangle an Open Source Network Gateway. Most people will have an old PC that has been retired that would work great for this product. In fact, in their blog they’ve posted a response to the conficker worm: http://blog.untangle.com/?p=197.
If you are nervous of the Conficker Worm due to wreak havoc tomorrow, do ensure that your virus protection is up to date. Updated versions of Kaspersky Anti-Virus, as used in our Kaspersky Virus Blocker, will keep you safe
I will admit that this appliance may be out of the reach of some home users technical ability but I will argue that it will only be in the installation. Once this is running it’s very point and click friendly. I’ve lived with it for some time now and I’ve never had to consult any outside documentation. Everything I needed to do was very point and click friendly.
The broad point that I’m trying to paint here is that even though there is great evil to be had in the computer industry … the “good guys” outnumber the bad ones. For this one person featured on 60 minutes – who had the misfortune of having her account compromised – I’m sure there are several thousands that conduct business every day without any problems. I have to admit some laziness in my conclusion since I don’t have time now for the numbers but I will stand behind my assertion if anyone will care to call me out on it.
While writing that actual paragraph about my assumption I had this article cross my desk: Conficker flaw yields new tool for detection.
Security researchers have developed a new tool that can scan the company network and remotely detect machines infected with the Conficker worm.
A proof-of-concept scanner was released by the Honeynet Project, a non-profit security research organization. The tool is also being made available on many network scanning vendor tools: Tenable (Nessus), McAfee/Foundstone, Nmap, nCircle and Qualys.
I offer myself up as another example that the good guys will win. I’ve spent a good part of my childhood and all of my adult life in the computer industry. In the last week on any given day I loaded 14,487 web pages during the course of my work. That’s not an estimate, its a measurement from an untangle machine that I run on my home internet. Last month I sent 449 e-mail messages and received 1,999 [again, that is a precise measurement]. I have 7 monitors hooked up to the main desktop computer that I spend a majority of my life in front of. I have never had my identity, any of my confidential, or any personal data stolen from me.
My Call To Action
Please, don’t over react. Keep living life as you would but take a few minutes to research the exciting technology that can make you’re already low risk behavior a bit lower. I have no idea how far this article will spread but I’m willing to entertain as many questions as I have time to answer to help those that are afraid.
Good Specifics
After some more research I’ve found a post I really like that presents a balenced report of specifics on this worm: http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/03/27/hype-april-fools-day-conficker-worm/
