We're going to see some virus activity there that takes advantage of that. I think we'll also start to see more companies recognizing that they need to put security solutions in place.
What makes it a problem, regardless of why, is that smaller companies are the ones who have fewer defenses in place. There are no large dedicated IT staffs in place, or large budgets for technology, so it's a double whammy.
One of the things Sober does is it turns your computer into a spam zombie.
I can only guess that this is one of those sort of anti-Microsoft sentiment things that's going on here.
We thought we were going to have a boring year in viruses, and Sober really shook that up.
Hackers have discovered IM; it's the new playground for them.
I think we're finally going to see some activity from the ISPs to do something about this.
Unless you're checking the log files on a mail server, you're not going to be aware this is happening. What you might be aware of is slow performance on your mail server.
We have seen it start to ratchet up,
When you have an email server like Microsoft Exchange, which is the most common for small businesses, you end up buying more hardware than you need in order to process the spam you've let in.
There's still plenty of unprotected home users, but this virus isn't ground-breaking.
This is not a spam reduction measure. It is a way for a legitimate merchant to avoid getting a false/positive in an AOL spam filter.
It's bad enough to get a virus like Sober that turns your PC into a zombie, but at least with that you can disinfect it.
Even when you've got the tools in place, it's something you want to be vigilant about.
It's still an amazing amount of garbage overall.
Not surprisingly, 85 per cent said spam and virus protection had been their number one concern in 2005.
Support of the TLS protocol is built into all the modern mail servers. It simply needs to be turned on.
That's an exceptional number for a virus in a 24-hour period. Things quieted down a little bit after a tremendous outbreak last week, but now this thing has gone back to pegging the needle.
The issue of IM is that it's being used on the public networks. IM is subject to all the same problems as e-mail. It's extremely fast and efficient at propagating to a buddy list.
If you are in publishing, you get more spam sent to you than anybody else.
The increase in spam was due to an increase in tax preparation offers and other financial service offerings that are more prevalent as we approach April 15.
The issue with those systems is -- and this is just starting to change -- is that those are just LAN-based systems. Your employees can IM each other, but they don't help you communicate with customers, people outside of their domain.
