Security Warnings: Take With A Grain of Salt.

Several people have alerted us today to this CNN story:

A disgruntled hacker with a personal grudge against Symantec, which provides anti-virus software to leading Fortune 500 companies, could be behind a new, crippling computer virus that's already hit a division of at least one big U.S. corporation on Thursday.

If it spreads, technology experts warn the latest strains of the insidious RINBOT computer virus could hijack network systems of businesses worldwide.
New strains

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with Boston-based IT security firm Sophos, said his company has been aware of "a number" of new versions of the RINBOT or DELBOT virus produced since Feb. 15.

"We believe this latest strain is the 7th version of RINBOT which first emerged in March 2005," Cluley said.

According to Cluley, this version is designed to exploit security vulnerabilities embedded in anti-virus software.

"Traditionally hackers always went after Microsoft's anti-virus programs. But now they're increasingly targeting other commonly used programs such as Symantec programs and others," he said.

Cluley said this strain appears to be hitting MS SQL servers. It looks for networks that run the Microsoft (Charts) Windows operating system, including Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT and Windows XP. It then spreads through the network by manipulating "weak" spots such as simple passwords.

However, a quick review of the major security websites doesn't show any unusual alerts. Trend Micro's alert board shows all low threat malware. Sophos, quoted in the CNN story does not show either RINBOT or DELBOT on its threat board.

Lesson One here is take media reports of security threats with a grain of salt and learn to check the major security websites before freaking out.
Lesson Two: Is that good security is a way of life. Your network (home or business) is either designed to be secure or it isn't.

If you have given some time and attenton to security; installing security software, ensuring that it self-updates, installing and locking down a hardware firewall, then you can pretty much put your mind at ease in these sorts of situations. Only people who have not spent that minimum amount of time and expense need to worry.

That said, all it takes is one person to open that interesting e-mail with the Viagra deal... and all your good work can come crashing down. Fun, eh?