Network Security Roundup for August 13, 2003

CNN: Warnings Did Little To Stop Internet Worm13-Aug-03 10:23 ET

Story Highlights:“The latest Internet attack on Microsoft operating systems by rogue software disabled tens of thousands of computers worldwide Tuesday, though a fix had been available for nearly a month.”

Full Story on CNN

Story Highlights:“Despite infecting tens of thousands of computers worldwide, the recent W32.Blaster worm is poorly written and inefficient, blunting its impact, according to security experts. However, future versions of the worm could correct Blaster’s flaws and spread much more quickly, resulting in service outages on infected networks and causing far greater harm to businesses and individual users on the Internet.”

Full Story on PCWorld

Story Highlights:“Networked storage brings big advantages to the enterprise — and big security challenges to the IT Department. The shift to Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) is accelerating, with analysts predicting that by 2006 some 70 percent of enterprise information will be spread among Fibre Channel networks or attached storage devices.”

Full Story on TechWeb

Story Highlights:“In June, half of all e-mail was spam — those annoying unsolicited messages that hawk everything from porn and Viagra to mortgage-refinancing deals and weight-loss patches. But if you think spam is out of control, prepare yourself. It could get a lot worse. Over the past few months, e-mail security companies have seen mounting evidence that spammers are using virus-writing techniques to assure that their sales pitches get through.”

Full Story on Business Week

Story Highlights:“It’s a fair estimate that any individual who uses email has received one of the Nigerian-type email scams by now. Like all things, the scam is evolving and keeping in sync with world events. For a while the scam was about the ruler of some African country who had appropriated huge sums of money and wanted to move them out of the country. A common variant on this was the one where someone in an African country had a similar sum to move out from a deal involving petroleum.”

Full Story on Fairfax I.T.