Toolkit

Story: Swen worm tops virus charts

Posted by: Anonymous (Monday 22 September 2003, 2:10 PM)

That one was a close call!
I regluarly patch my system, working in the IT indstry I know of the importance of security patches and even at home I run the latest virus scans and have installed a firewall.
The most recent virus problem I had on my home setup was MSBlaster, not that I hadn't patched the system but I had just re-installed the OS after fitting a new hard disk. I had installed the network drivers (for my broadband connection) and 6 minutes later my machine was brought crashing down by blaster. Luckily I had installed my firewall so I could detach Blaster.exe from the network, this stops it running long enough to download patched and virus signature updates to I could remove it.

For me to get Swen, I would have had to open the email. I never usually fall for the "Social Engineering" type of virus delivery but this one ALMOST got me. This is the first time I got that close to falling for the trick and to be honest, that scares me! I was just about to open the infected email when I suddenly snapped into reality and remembered the MS never emails patches and even though I was using hotmail opening this email would be dangerous. It wasn't until I got to work and checked ZDNet new that I realised just how close I was.

If a worm like this can get a seasoned (I have had my share of reformatted hard disks and unknown strangers using my PC through trojans) IT professional like me then I hate to think about how many new and unexperenced users are getting hit by this one!