Graham Cluley Rote Quotations

It's important that businesses and home users ensure they are properly protected with automatically updated anti-virus software, and never open unsolicited email attachments. The criminals behind these viruses and Trojan horses don't stop just because it's the holiday season. They are counting on people returning in the New Year and not thinking before opening their email.

However, when examined by an experienced virus analyst the similarities become clear. It appears that whoever wrote Zotob had access to the Mytob source code, ripped out the email-spreading section, and plugged in the Microsoft exploit.

Two years ago, the US accounted for over half of all spam sent to the world - now it is less than a quarter, evidence which confirms that more Americans are waking up to the need to protect their home computers from malicious hackers. More and more viruses, worms and Trojan horses are being designed to take over innocent users' computers with the intention of stealing information and sending out junk email campaigns.

Most businesses have been protecting against this for a couple of weeks. Home users who have not updated their software may be at risk if they open unsolicited subject lines.

Microsoft's credibility will have been damaged by this hack. How can the biggest software company in the world not employ the simple safe-computing practices which could have protected it from this sort of attack?

The question on everyone's lips is - when will we see the next one, and will it have a more malicious payload. Apple Mac users need to be just as careful about protecting their computers with anti-virus software, firewalls and security patches as their friends and colleagues using Windows.

A vulnerability like this opens the door for hackers to spy upon your sensitive information. Not protecting yourself against this problem is like leaving your front door open when you pop down the shops, and expecting to find that no-one has stolen your belongings.

It has obviously taken longer for Microsoft to release a patch for the WMF flaw on the Vista platform than current versions of Windows, but that's because Vista isn't yet released and it was a higher priority to protect the shipping versions of Windows.

Apple Macs have been in the news for the last few weeks regarding a number of security issues. It's important that all computer users are protected against the latest attacks, and have their computers properly patched against vulnerabilities in the operating system. It would be a mistake to think that security flaws are only found in Microsoft's products.

It appears whoever wrote Zotob had access to the Mytob source code, ripped out the email-spreading section and plugged in the Microsoft exploit.

It appears that whoever wrote Zotob had access to the Mytob source code, ripped out the email-spreading section, and plugged in the Microsoft exploit. It's possible that several people have access to the Mytob source code - so it may not be the last we see of this Internet scourge.