FYI:

The following report appeared in the electronic journal; "THE ELECTRONIC
JOURNAL":


                         The Electronic Telegraph
                           Tuesday 30 May 1995
                                City News

            Computer viruses: infection rates on the increase

MORE THAN half the organisations surveyed recently by accountancy
firm Price Waterhouse have had their computers infected by viruses
in the past 12 months. In the largest 200 companies the infection
rate went up to 61pc, which compares with 28pc at the time of the
last survey in 1991.

Financial companies were most likely to be attacked, and small companies
least likely. The viruses most commonly found were: Form, Ripper,
Cascade, Tequila, and Stoned.

The interesting footnote to that list is that the widely-feared and
much-publicised Michelangelo virus, with which the professionals
have been frightening us with for years, did not occur once in the
survey.

At the time of the 1991 study there were about 500 known viruses;
the latest software tests for 5,625. Most of the companies questioned
thought the risks would at best get no less in the future.

The alarming news is of two new forms of threat: the "polymorphic"
viruses which constantly change their shape to evade detection; and
"stealth" variants which hide in unexpected places, such as pretending
that the part of the hard disk where they are concealed is just a
"bad sector" and therefore ignored by most software, including some
detection programs.

The Price Waterhouse survey was carried out with Priority in Ireland,
north and south. But Bob Semple, of Price Waterhouse, said the picture
is likely to be similar in England, Scotland and Wales. That is reinforced
by another study last year that looked at the UK and came up with
similar figures.

Ironically, his own firm had in fact recently been infected when
an update of the anti-virus software arrived just after a new form
found its way into the system. The hardest part of eradicating it,
Mr Semple said, was in hunting down all the diskettes that might
have been infected.

It is enough to miss just one perhaps thrown into a desk drawer and
taken out and used several months later for the problem to start
all over again. Also, cures are very hard work.

Once a virus has been detected it is probably best for most companies
to go through the long and painful process of "surgical excision",
rather than "scrubbing" the hard disk and reloading the unaffected
programs and files.

That is because "nobody ever has proper back-ups", says Mr Semple.
He has recently found back-up tape cartridges which purported to
contain all the data of a company but were in fact blank-the software
was not infected, just faulty.

Instructions on dealing with the problem of viruses seem remarkably
similar to the medical condition which gave the the electronic affliction
its name. Once a virus has been detected, or even suspected, isolate
the system immediately and identify the virus.

If it is a known virus there may well be a cure already developed,
but call for an expert as soon as possible. Other contacts should
be notified immediately and warned to take similar quarantine precautions.

With cures being that complicated it is preferable to opt for prevention.
One problem is that "most managers don't even understand what they
don't know about secrurity", said Mr Semple. Once a business understands
the various aspects of keeping its system secure, the measures are
relatively obvious. There is physical and electronic security and
both need supervision. Among the measures suggested by the report
are:

make people aware of the dangers.

Control where programs come from.

Control and monitor all on-line links by computers.

Install anti-virus software on all desk-top computers.

Scan all incoming diskettes.

Back up data regularly and keep copies off site.

Test back-ups by restoring copies.

Update anti-virus software regularly.

The accountancy firm is reluctant to offer advice about what preventive
software to buy-or to be more precise, subscribe to. Presumably,
if a virus does squeeze through, it does not want to be sued over
the advice.

In any case, all the programs are continuously updated to keep pace
with the mischief-makers and to include measures against all the
newly-detected viruses. As a result of this continuous running to
stay in the same place, no one program is consistently the best at
detecting every virus.

But among the consistently well-reviewed and successful ones are
Dr Solomon and MacAffee, and two others recently praised are Fprot
Professional and Sweep. It is good to have such protection, but the
best way to avoid the problem is to have sensible precautions.

END STORY

Allen Taylor
Moderator, VIRUS_INFO
1:231/45

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 * Origin: Archives for Anti-Virus & Encryption S/W (1:231/45)

