Virus damage tops $80bn in February
According to security experts mi2g, virus activity caused as much as $83bn in economic damage in February.
With numerous variants of MyDoom, Doomjuice and NetSky causing havoc over the wires, the shortest month of the year looks set to be one of the largest in terms of virus impact.
'The internet world is descending into total anarchy if the online business of organisations can be threatened so overtly and their senior managements' policies can be challenged in this way. RIAA may be paying the price for filing law suits against digital entertainment file sharers since September 2003.' said DK Matai, Executive Chairman, mi2g. 'MyDoom is exposing the vulnerability of the global digital eco-system. There could be more malware in the near future that could push the boot further than MyDoom and cripple airline services, telecommunications and other critical infrastructure.'
Even now, the latest MyDoom variant - the F strain - is successfully coordinating a distributed denial of service attack against the website of the RIAA. mi2g reports that 24 hours after MyDoom-F spread across the Internet the website was effectively rendered inaccessible.
It also reports that sophisticated hackers are making an international effort to break into infected computers via the ports opened by MyDoom viruses. They are installing anything from keylogging Trojans to fileservers to distribute pirated material and open proxies to send out spam.
