Throwback Thursday: The real virus problem

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Oct 15, 2015

This Throwback Thursday, we turn the clock back to February 2004 when, in order to get a gauge of the "real" virus problem, Jim Bates presented the findings of a survey of UK computer programmers.

"A ragbag of pseudo-scientific projections, surveys, reports, forecasts and speculations" — the true extent of the malware problem has always been difficult to gauge, whether because of organizations not wanting to reveal that they have fallen victim to attacks or due to the marketing departments of vendor companies manipulating facts and figures for their own gains. In December 1993, Jim Bates declared that most of the information concerning virus prevalence had either been unabashed hyperbole and exaggeration designed primarily to frighten users into buying a particular anti-virus package, or simply gathered in such a way as to invalidate the statistics.

In an attempt to set the record straight, Jim wrote an article for VB, in which he presented the findings of a recent survey of UK computer programmers — crucially, conducted without any input from the software vendors.

The survey covered, amongst other things, the types of viruses encountered, the identity of those viruses (the top nine were: Form, New Zealand II, Tequila, Cascade, Jerusalem, Michelangelo, Spanish Telecom, Dark Avenger and Yankee), how the infections were dealt with, and how the threat of infection was dealt with. The biggest surprise to come from the report was the fact that fewer than 6% of the respondents actually reported the incident to the police.

Jim Bates' article can be read here in HTML-format, or downloaded here as a PDF.

Posted on 15 October 2015 by Helen Martin

twitter.png
fb.png
linkedin.png
hackernews.png
reddit.png

 

Latest posts:

VBSpam tests to be executed under the AMTSO framework

VB is excited to announce that, starting from the Q3 test, all VBSpam tests of email security products will be executed under the AMTSO framework.

In memoriam: Prof. Ross Anderson

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of Professor Ross Anderson a few days ago.

In memoriam: Dr Alan Solomon

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of industry pioneer Dr Alan Solomon earlier this week.

New paper: Nexus Android banking botnet – compromising C&C panels and dissecting mobile AppInjects

In a new paper, researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Bansal provide details of a security vulnerability in the Nexus Android botnet C&C panel that was exploited in order to gather threat intelligence, and present a model of mobile AppInjects.

New paper: Collector-stealer: a Russian origin credential and information extractor

In a new paper, F5 researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Chaturvedi present a 360 analysis of Collector-stealer, a Russian-origin credential and information extractor.

We have placed cookies on your device in order to improve the functionality of this site, as outlined in our cookies policy. However, you may delete and block all cookies from this site and your use of the site will be unaffected. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to Virus Bulletin's use of data as outlined in our privacy policy.