SONYA COLBERG World Staff Writer
Local companies are reporting plans to deal with the attacks.
Computer viruses and other hacker products are spreading like confetti at Times Square on New Year's Eve.
Some computer users predict that cyber bullies will bring in the New Year with an unprecedented attack on software. Others say it's all just more Y2K hype.
The virus risk this holiday season is about double that for the same time last year. And the risk of computer hacking is 2.5 to 4 times what it was last year, says the International Computer Security Association in Reston, Va.
Local companies are reporting plans to deal with the threat, although none report that they will follow the example of the Pentagon and some government agencies that will shut down their Web sites during the weekend.
Tulsa-based Internet retail site BuyItNow.com will take precautions to avoid cyber-revellers, said Mark Koopmans, a systems manager at the company.
"Our main concern is viruses and hackers disguising their activities as Y2K bugs," Koopmans said. "Viruses are very difficult to battle this time of the year with the new millennium.
"A lot of people who write viruses have been saving them up to let them loose around Y2K."
Companies like BuyItNow have to deal with pesky virus onslaughts constantly, with a new virus appearing about once a week, Koopmans said.
"In the last two or three weeks, we've seen a fivefold increase," he said. "It's been pretty crazy."
BuyItNow's Internet system will be up and running through Y2K, but the company's corporate system will be running at minimal capacity, Koopmans said. Cutting the number of running servers to two from 17 servers for the corporate system will make it easier for computer techs to localize any Y2K bugs.
Carter Merkle, program manager for Oklahoma Electronic Commerce Connection, said people should be vigilant but not panicky about the threats.
"Judging from the recent viruses we've seen, somebody is working real hard right now to put a detrimental payload on one and release it just after Jan. 1," he said.
"Everybody seems to be on high alert, but somebody is bound to try that," Merkle said. "Using common sense, I would say that's going to be a bigger threat than hacking.
"But some of the hacking attacks could be more high profile if a high-profile company is hit."
Going to the extreme of shutting down Web sites -- like government agencies are doing -- is not recommended, said Roger Thompson, technical director of malicious code research for the International Computer Security Association. | "The damage is simply the equivalent of a denial of service -- nobody can use the thing," he said in a telephone interview from the ICSA lab in Carlisle, Pa. "If you're trying to sell a product, that might be bad . . . they might go to the competition."
ICSA, which has surveyed viruses and hacker attacks over the years, found that Christmas and New Year's Eve are typically trouble times, with double the attacks seen in the weeks imme diately before or after. Thompson blamed the increases primarily on vacationing students with idle time on their hands.
"The hackers and virus-writers, some of them are kids and they think it's cool," Thompson said. "Then there's the Peter Pan kind of guys who never grew up, and they do it, too."
Viruses and hackers are becoming more common regardless of season.
"In terms of Y2K, ICSA feels a lot of this is hype," said Barbara Rose of ICSA. "We don't think there is going to be a massive outbreak of viruses or hacker attempts."
Some universities and businesses are adopting the same attitude. Both the University of Tulsa and Sabre's offices in Tulsa plan to keep their Web sites running through Y2K weekend, spokesmen said.
Tulsa-based SecureAgent.com owner Brent Johnson, said he is expecting viruses to hit.
"There are known threatening viruses, some that will hit before the first, some on New Year's Eve and some a few days later," he said.
He said "Chinese Fish" is expected to be triggered New Year's Eve and to watch for w97m/caligula.a and w97M/chack.h.
Computer users also can keep watch for virus hoaxes this time of year, as well as any other time. Rose said "elf bowling" was passed among computers earlier this month.
"It was really kind of cute. Then this vicious rumor went around that it was a virus that would kick in on Dec. 25," she said. "People got frantic."
It was a hoax, and so were a couple of viruses released around Christmas that were purported to be Y2K viruses but were actually old viruses renamed.
Peter Tippett, ICSA chief technologist, put the odds of an actual, major virus attack over Y2K at about 7 percent. And he put the hacking odds at 9 percent of 100 or more sites being attacked successfully by the same electronic exploit.
"What I'm hoping is that things will start to calm down in February," Koopmans said.
Return to the News Coverage |
