The Web We Live In

The Web We Live In
By Mark J. Trask, for SBT
Not long ago, I was greated by the sound of our network administrator crying “Oh, no; not again”. Yes, a new virus had infected our network, despite our best efforts to block all viruses.
Computer viruses are disrupting thousands of small businesses in America. The recent Nimda (“admin” spelled backwards) virus was estimated to have disrupted more than 130,000 computers around the world — damage that takes millions of dollars to repair.
Many of you understand the frustration of your customers and sales people when viruses disrupt your networks. It seems that just as we work hard to build e-commerce services, those services become at risk due to computer viruses.
With the ringing of the network administrator fresh in my mind, I decided to learn more about computer viruses. Not only are viruses disruptive, but they are also colorful. A recent check of the www.symantec.com virus encyclopedia revealed the following viruses:
Code Red Worm I and II – These try to disable a popular web tool — Microsoft’s IIS.
Blue Scorpion.1638 and Blue Nile – These do various bad things, such as e-mail themselves to your friends.
Black XF, alias Black Friday – These erase things on your Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
Green Caterpillar – This slowly destroys key programs on your computer.
The Jeru.Yellow virus – This beauty keeps your programs, but makes them encrypted so you can’t use them.
Hacker imagination apparently has some limits, as there are no Taupe or Aqua viruses at the time of this article.
One source of good information for small businesses on technical topics is www.howstuffworks.com. I visit there regularly and recommend it as a place to find easy-to-understand explanations to technical topics.
How Stuff Works explains about the different kinds of computer viruses. E-mail viruses are small programs hidden in e-mail messages that can do anything from delete your disk to pop up a cute birthday message. Worm viruses scan computers for vulnerabilities, and then send a copy of themselves to other computers. Trojan Horse viruses are programs that sound like free, fun games, but end up messing up so much of your computer you have to call your computer guy or niece to fix it.
What can you do to keep your computer business records secure from all colored and uncolored viruses? There are two options. First, you can disconnect your computers from all Internet activity — including e-mail. This doesn’t guarantee your safety, since one of your employees can still bring in a disk with a virus on it, but the risk to your company is lowered.
The best option is to have your company subscribe to an automatic virus protection update service, such as Symantec’s Enterprise Solution or McAfee’s Enterprise Secure Cast service (www.mcafee.com). These solutions are installed on a server at your small business. Periodically, every four hours or every day, these solutions automatically contact Symantec or McAfee to gather the latest virus antidotes and install them on your network computers. Anti-virus software can be purchased at neighborhood computer stores and many online at sites such as www.cdw.com and www.pcconnection.com.
Some of you may have your computer servers hosted in another company’s “server farm”. Some of your big questions to that hosting company should be, “Whose enterprise anti-virus product do you subscribe to? And how often do you automatically update your anti-virus software?”
Unfortunately, there is no 100% guarantee that your company’s computers won’t be hurt by a virus attack. Until there is legislation in Wisconsin that penalizes people for developing programs that deliberately damage business and personal computer data, hackers will sit back and develop more powerful viruses. They enjoy thinking that we are crying “Oh, no; not again”.
Milwaukee Area Technical College offers several classes, like CIS-159, Web Maintenance and Security, which help people minimize the risk from computer viruses.
Mark Trask is associate vice president for information technology at Milwaukee Area Technical College. He can be contacted at traskweb@matc.edu.
November 9, 2001 Small Business Times, Milwaukee