By Will Sturgeon, 3 February 2006 17:10
NEWS
The IT security industry has come in for fresh criticism over the hype which has surrounded the Nyxem virus also known as Kama Sutra.
For the past few days security vendors had been sending out warnings about an email 'time bomb' waiting to go off on 3 February but just about the time systems should have been grinding to a halt in accordance with some of the worst-case scenarios - many stopped to reflect on the fact that little appeared to have happened.
Now one antivirus expert is urging users to ditch any notion they may have had that forewarned was forearmed in this case - and has hit out at industry over-hype, claiming most users were protected three weeks ago.
Russ Cooper, senior information security analyst at Cybertrust, told silicon.com: "There has been way too much hype around this. There was nothing that anybody had to do about this and yet the hype is going to have proven very expensive and very costly in terms of the time and resources this will have cost companies."
He said the impact of that could be felt further on down the line. "Management executives cannot now ignore the fact this will cost a lot in terms of overtime and resources, and for what?" said Cooper, who argued that many of the remedial measures suggested by security companies in the run-up to 3 February were unnecessary, given most will have had up-to-date protection.
Cooper said too many companies had been swept along by the opportunity for media coverage and too many media companies, particularly in the mainstream, had been seduced by the 'time bomb' angle.
Comments
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1. Warren Swaine
Sadly too many journalists simply regurgitate press releases as news. Until that changes, you can hardly blame the anti-virus industry from attempting to peddle their overrated wares - that's their job. Try reading VMyths for some perspective on anti-virus hysteria before publishing their PR as news.
And remember, Anti-virus software is not there to protect your PC, it is there to protect idiots from themselves. Don't use it myself ;)
2. NJ Cesar
I wonder if this story is also over hyped... as it said most users would have been protected 3 weeks ago. When I first heard about the virus I checked to see what remedy wqas needed, because we keep our systems up-to-date there wasn't any worry. I didn't spend hours of overtime, it took me less than 10 minutes to read the article and assess our defenses. Ok we are small business, but even a large company should be keeping its protection up-to-date and therefore only require a simple check to make sure they were covered.
As for anti-virus products I use them, I find them helpful and think any news on threats is invaluable because I'd hate to leave it all up to the vendors and not understand the threats that are posed. My MD heard about the virus, ask me the question and I was able to respond with the knowledge about it and how we were protected. If I responded to the question with, "dunno, software should handle it" how much confidence would that inspire?
In short the hype should be taken with a pinch of salt and just follow the simple procedures often hidden away in the articles.