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No Joke in April Fool's Day Computer Worm Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - Sarah Gingichashvili Home >> Headlines >> Internet   
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A computer-science detective story is playing out on the Internet as security experts try to hunt down a worm called Conficker C and prevent it from damaging millions of computers on April Fool's Day. The anti-worm researchers have banded together in a group they call the Conficker Cabal. Members are searching for the malicious software program's author and for ways to do damage control if he or she can't be stopped. (source: edition.cnn.com)
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As a user and not a geek, I have to ask this question. How is it - actually, WHY is it - that antivirus programs can only deal with an infected file by deleting it or quarantining it? If it\'s a file you need and can\'t replace, you have been hurt by the cure as much as by the disease, because without that file, the software it belongs to probably will no longer function. Sure, it\'s nice to say that that\'s why we should keep our installation software for purposes such as this, but what if your dog sat on the disk and cracked it? Or your 5-year old wanted to see what would happen to it in the microwave? Or some other misadventure occurred and you no longer HAVE the installation software? Does that mean you deserve to be hurt? And not all malware overwrites data in the files they infect; some merely attach themselves TO the file - so where are the security programs that can erase just that part? With all the expertise available, how is it that malware can\'t be EXCISED from the file it has attacked? If it has then damaged the file, the public should be able to go online to replace that file from its source - and without cost, since giving out one single file (or even a small group of them) is NOT going to compromise their copyright rights. Software vendors who do this are going to enhance their public image considerably. We should be seeking to help users of software find the infection and SEE it for themselves. Malware scanners know what they\'re looking for, but don\'t share with us the information about what is IN these infections. Or even tell us much about whe infection will do. It\'s just \"We found this malware. Do you want the file deleted or quarantined?\" That\'s just not enough. I think we have a right to know everything there is to know about any malware that has gotten into our expensive computers and software. Nothing less is satisfactory. While I trust that most anti malware programs are good at what they do, what they do isn\'t enough. Even if I don\'t fully understand an explanation of what a given malware can do to my PC, I want to HAVE that info, anyway. And I want there to be people online who can help me understand it, too. The programmer community has given us marvellous gifts, and I respect them profoundly. Without PCs and progams, this world would be a very much worse place than it is now. But they must also help us when criminals USE those gifts to harm others. It isn\'t enough to merely recognize bad stuff beofore it gets in, because they can\'t do that 100% of the time. Nor is it enough to identify and remove the affected files. All that is to the good, but is still not enough. I don\'t want someone else to have the full knowledge about a malicious program that gets into MY property, and decide on my behalf what should be done about it. I want more options, more information, and I want genuine CURES, not just identification and removal of whole infeted files. If the heuristics can find the malware, surely they can present us with the actual text of it, for example. And if it can be found, why can\'t the text of it be edited or erased? Anti-malware is big business. I suspect that keeping us ignorant of most of what is going on with malware in our systems is a way of generatting new business, rather than helping the consumers. The big names in anti-malware have gargantuan programs, that gorge the registry with thousands of files that WON\'T be erased if you uninstall them. Most of them are focused entirely on sales, not on the job you bought the software to perform. I\'ve found the free - and extremely lightweight by comparison - freeware from AVG is as good as any, at any price. But even they do not yet provide the information we need to be fully knowledgeable about something that attacked our property. Please regard this as a request to the programmers to try to address this need of the public. |
