July 19th, 2004
The end of the mass e-mailer worm era?
In a recent column, Larry Seltzer [eWeek] suggests that lack of innovation and qualified virus writers signals the end of malicious e-mail worms. I don’t agree that e-mail worms are going away–they’re merely taking a rest until a clever author figures out how to bypass the minimal security within e-mail clients, or figures out how to stealthily attach mischievous code to outbound e-mail. E-mail is a utility, and despite the results of a questionable survey suggesting 6 out of 10 companies would give up e-mail, businesses are not going to displace an application that has become as critical as phone service. If e-mail worms are in fact in retreat, we fortunately still have innovative network worms like Atak and Bagle to look forward to.
