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 Year 2003 brought quite a few surprises and twists in the field of computer security. Our dependency on information security became painfully obvious. So what happened in the year 2003 and what can we expect from the future?
2003 started off with a bang. During the first two days of the New Year, four new viruses were found and all four managed to spread quite extensively. These viruses used new methods to spread, and combined hacking techniques with traditional methods further facilitating to an increased spreading rate. In addition, the viruses tended to install confidentiality-breaching backdoors, which are difficult to detect.
The increasing amounts of broadband connections enable the worms to spread all over the world increasingly fast and have contributed to an explosion in the amount of spam mail. Unprotected home computers provide excellent platforms for spreading viruses.
Virus authoring moved from amateur activity to organized crime causing large-scale financial losses.
Hackers exploited world events and peoples ignorance about computer security. When the war in Iraq broke out, hackers cracked several Internet pages and changed their contents to promote their own views. The hackers targeted companies specialized in electronic commerce and stole their customer and credit information, which were used for blackmailing purposes. In addition the hackers targeted opposing forces with denial of service attacks.
In the future, the pursuit of financial gain will inspire hackers to come up with stealthier viruses that are even harder to thwart. Traditional protection will not be enough; firewalls combined with a change in the Internet culture will be needed to protect one against the increasingly complex threats. Safe Internet usage starts from home.
This last issue of the year, concentrates on the past year and on how F-Secure will respond to future challenges with new products and services.
A Merry Christmas and
A Happy New Year!
Jaana Sirkiä
Editor-in-Chief
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The latest virus outbreaks during this autumn have demonstrated that email viruses and network worms are a growing nuisance for home users and small offices. The viruses are using new and different techniques to enter the computers plain antivirus is no longer enough. Read more on how to stay protected.
F-Secure reaction times are the fastest of all global antivirus vendors.
Read more about the procedures and reaction times.
E-mail discussion lists, newsletters and permission-based e-mail marketing campaigns are everyday forms of communication on the Internet. There may be tens of thousands of subscribers just on one e-mail list. If a message infected by a virus is accidentally sent to an e-mail list, such as a customer newsletter, the effects can be widespread and potentially devastating. Read more about how F-Secure and L-Soft protect e-mail lists from viruses and how they stopped the proliferation of 2.6 billion virus-infected e-mails in just one month.
The need for security utilities in the home user market has been evident for a long time. In order to provide a comprehensive security solution for the single user, F-Secure has entered a partnership with a European software re-publisher Editions WSKA. WSKA delivers the F-Secure Internet Security product that provides both protection from viruses and a personal firewall.
In August many F-Secure employees worked around the clock to tackle the worst virus outbreaks in history. F-Secures Anti-Virus Research Team together with our communications department and partners achieved enormous publicity throughout the world.
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