New era of malware requires new virus prevention solutions

Victims of the Lovsan/Blaster virus outbreak already know that simply installing an anti-virus application is no longer enough to protect against increasingly complex virus hybrids designed to wreak havoc on workstations and servers across the globe.

“Today's virus writers are more than script kiddies looking to make a name for themselves with a piece of Visual Basic code,” says Ryan Price, CEO of Y3K Group, South African provider of content security solutions. “They now create hybrid worms that use a variety of mechanisms to replicate, combining excellent programming skills with innovative hacker techniques to cause mayhem.”

Moreover, warns Price, they aren't reliant only on e-mail attachments or bits of code downloaded from a Web site. New malware can use operating system or software vulnerabilities and invade a system transparent to the user. To stop these complex attacks, users need improved security solutions that proactively protect all weak points in their systems without any human intervention.

“The past few weeks have been the busiest in virus history. In the case of Blaster, a traditional anti-virus program, even with the most recent update, was powerless against the worm,” Price adds. “This proves that the era of traditional anti-virus products is over. As a minimum, users need an anti-virus with an integrated firewall.”