X-Mass Greetings Could Bring Viruses

There is a warning for consumers to stay away from Christmas cards
appearing in mailboxes from senders not known. It is also not safe to
keep PCs on when going for holidays. While the Yuletide spirit in the air
is welcome, viruses are not.

The scenario has been just that for the past couple of years. In 2004 the
Zafi.D worm traversed on the Internet posing as a Christmas card; in
2005, the MerryX.A Trojan spread through Christmas e-greetings.

The Zafi.D worm is a new version of the worm 'Zafi'. It transfers itself
as if it's a typical Christmas greeting. The worm is smart enough that it
sends greeting in different languages as per the recipient's domain. The
greeting could be in English, Italian, Hungarian, Russian, French or
others. Irrespective of the language the new worm has same impact. It
disrupts anti-virus & security software to install a backdoor on the
affected system.

Enterprises are experiencing a great many new viruses and these threats
continue to grow. They are getting more and more sophisticated in the way
they proliferate and attack networks. According to Kartik Shahani,
director of sales, India, McAfeeOne hackers are with ample time to
release viruses during the Christmas season and this is one reason for
the explosion of viruses.

The business loss due to severe virus attacks results in reduced
productivity, break of network bandwidth, loss of information, and
destruction of IT assets. With such threats not seeming to end,
enterprises must take anti-virus initiatives on the highest priority.

In the view of antivirus companies, leaving the computer for days
together say during holidays could bring the PC in contact with viruses.
In the absence of the automatic virus pattern turned on for update, new
worms can infect the computer or network even when it is not in use.

All such threats are reason for busy antivirus firms. Prabhat K. Singh,
head, India security response operations, Symantec located in Pune said
that they release signatures within hours of detecting an outbreak. Anil
Menon, CEO, SecureSynergy said that in order to keep viruses out of
reach, his company team encourages customers to maintain updated
anti-virus tools and install firewalls on their systems.

Related article: X-Force – 53% of Security Vulnerabilities Remained Unpatched in 2008

» SPAMfighter News - 12/29/2006