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 The world has seen history in the making during the past months. In the summer, both Europe and the U.S.A were hit by a heat wave that made the living conditions in large areas almost unbearable. The arriving autumn did not bring much relief as new computer viruses and worms made IT administrators and workers sweat in front of non-functioning computers and networks. The heat is intensified by the severity of the cyber-attacks, as the incidents are tagged with high prices.
In August, we experienced the worst virus week in history so far. Within one week we saw several major virus outbreaks, as well as some completely new techniques in viruses. Names like Welchi, Dumary, Lovsan and Sobig.F became known worldwide and turned into swearwords. Hundreds of millions of computer users suffered from network problems, slow computers and overflowing spam e-mails. The booking systems of several airlines went down and power stations as well as public transportation companies had problems. It became painfully apparent how dependent our society is on IT infrastructure and how vulnerable it makes us.
Viruses and worms are more and more complex, utilizing hacking methods to enter networks and workstations. It is no longer just schoolboys who write them; connections to criminal organizations have been suspected. Making money has always been one of the greatest criminal motivators and might indeed lie behind these attacks as well.
It is therefore quite obvious that a pure antivirus product is no longer enough. In the case of the Lovsan worm, a traditional antivirus product allowed the worm to enter the computer, even with the most recent update. This proves that the era of traditional antivirus products is over the heat is on. Antivirus with an integrated firewall is the only protection against these attacks.
In this issue we describe in more detail how data security threats are changing, and how F-Secure is responding to them with years of experience by introducing the new F-Secure Anti-Virus Client Security product!
Jaana Sirkiä
Editor-in-Chief
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Today, hybrid worms or blended threats use multiple mechanisms to spread, combining traditional hacker techniques to find operating system or software vulnerabilities and adding malicious virus-like behaviour to do damage and replicate. Protection provided by conventional antivirus alone is not enough.
The latest viruses and worms, such as Nimda and Slammer, spread incredibly fast and, bypassing conventional antivirus software, automatically infect corporate workstations. The viruses and worms are a more complex threat than has been thought. The conventional antivirus solution is no longer enough.
Modern computer networks provide communication channels that were sci-fi only 10 years ago. The Internet is becoming one of the basic infrastructures that our society is built upon. We can now communicate both faster and to a wider audience than ever before. And it is easy. Unfortunately, computer viruses also take advantage of the same fast and easy communication channels to spread even faster.
A new virus is found in the wild. But is it a local phenomenon or is it the start of an infection world wide?
Public FIPS Certification for F-Secure SSH Products.
F-Secure has partners in over 50 countries all over the world. In the spring of 2003, we launched a new comprehensive Sales Partner Program to boost cooperation with our current partners, increase their sales productivity, maximize revenues and make it easier to recruit new partners.
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