MyDoom, Bagle-B are just a taste of viruses to come
The MyDoom Internet virus and the Bagle-B worm are only a taste of viruses, worms and Trojans set to appear in the coming year - effectively representing the tip of the iceberg as far as destructive capability is concerned.
This is according to Zea Silva, security business unit manager at independent IT solutions provider First Technology, who says that the speed with which MyDoom spread across the world was what made it so destructive.
"Computer users can expect many more new viruses to be released throughout the year, many of which may be even more destructive or disruptive than anything seen before. In addition, the speed with which viruses and worms will spread is likely to increase - from hours to only minutes.
"MyDoom initiated the fastest spreading malicious worm seen to date, which was largely because of the way it was created - as a simple e-mail with a standard subject line - and the way it hid itself in .zip or Windows executable attachments," she says.
In a matter of a few hours, the MyDoom worm spread so rapidly that anti-virus companies rated it as a 'high' outbreak risk. It was rated as the first serious outbreak of 2004 and, within a few days, had surpassed the damage caused by Sobig.F and Welchia.
MyDoom.A accounted for approximately 30% of all e-mail traffic globally and generated in excess of 100 million infected e-mails in its first 36 hours, blocking networks and overloading servers.
Only two days after MyDoom was released, a second version of the virus, MyDoom.B was spreading across the world. MyDoom.B released distributed Denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the SCO and Microsoft Web sites, and also prevented machines infected with MyDoom.A from accessing anti-virus sites.
