No doom from this virus, but don’t let down your guard
By David LaGesse
Its name, My Doom, made the virus that swept the Internet starting last week sound scary indeed. So far, though, it’s done little damage. To judge from its fairly benign "payload"—the bad deeds that a virus executes on an infected PC—My Doom mostly wanted to replicate itself, perhaps giving its author the jollies of seeing it spread. The result: E-mail sometimes slowed, a few companies briefly shut off their mail systems, and the virus shut down the Web site of at least one company perceived to be an enemy of Linux, the free operating system.
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But virus attacks these days are mostly tame compared with 1999’s Melissa, or ILoveYou a year later: "Networks were overwhelmed for days, even weeks," says Amit Yoran, who runs the cybersecurity division at the Department of Homeland Security. What has changed? "We’re better at reacting to viruses today," says John Pescatore at Gartner, a tech research firm. Most PC users don’t open unexpected E-mail attachments. More people also run antivirus programs, which these days can respond to a new threat within hours—as soon as security firms identify a new bug, their programs can quickly distribute code to bar it.
It’s annoying having to install an antivirus program and keep it up-to-date, or to pay an annual protection fee to companies that are sometimes guilty of hyping the danger. Take the chilling name "My Doom." Virus names typically reflect some text in the nefarious code; this time, an antivirus company apparently made up "My Doom" by adding an "o" to code text that said "my domain."
Still, a more malicious virus is sure to appear one day. So do us all a favor and get your guard up.
