For Symantec CEO John Thompson, there's always something new to worry about.
"More than 100 new viruses are identified every week -- and 60 new software [problems] every week," he said in a recent keynote speech. "We saw a 19 percent increase in attack activity in the first half" of 2003. Spam, of course, is also on the rise, along with arguably ill-advised attempts to curb it.
On top of that, Microsoft, Computer Associates International and other software companies are beginning to encroach on the security market. Still, it's not Thompson's style to come across as perturbed. Awareness about security problems is growing, and so is Symantec.
Since Thompson's arrival from IBM in 1999, the company has more than doubled its revenue in the teeth of an industrywide downturn. Symantec has also completed a series of acquisitions to move deeper into the market for generalised management tools.
Thompson sat down with CNET News.com to discuss the growing problem of worms, spam legislation and other security issues.
Q: When we look at viruses, is it ever going to get any better?
A: What we know of traditionally as a virus is no longer the state of the art for attacks. Now, we don't see many viruses. We see mostly worms that have Internet propagation techniques.
We saw a 400 percent increase in attacks that use peer-to-peer or instant-messaging infrastructure in the first half of the year. It is a small number of attacks, but it's a whopping increase. The kind of attacks we are likely to see are more complex, will move more rapidly, and do more harm. It's a horrible world out there, and we need to do a better job.
What is motivating the attacks? Has fraud overtaken the general urge to commit vandalism?
That element is certainly creeping in. Corporate espionage, credit card fraud, identity theft, rogue nations preparing for cyberwarfare. Clearly, the tools available to the good guys are also available to the bad guys. The knowledge people have about the Internet's infrastructure and technologies -- al-Qaida has the same knowledge; People in North Korea have the same knowledge, so if they really wanted to use the Internet as a way to probe into the infrastructure of this country, they clearly could.
Now, the vast majority of the activity is still kids, 18- to 23-year-olds in the dark of their bedroom doing what I call electronic graffiti. They don't go to the store anymore and buy 27 cans of spray paint. They just go to their bedroom and pull some macros off the Web and send them out. It's like the kid who reconfigured the MSBlast worm and sent it out as a new variant.
