Organizations ranging from the U.S. Marine Corps to CSX, one of the larger transportation companies in the world, found themselves temporarily out of business. At CSX, the Nachi worm took out the sprawling railroad’s signaling systems, stranding train traffic for nearly two days.
You need to stay on your toes and keep up with new techniques for dealing with these worms as they are developed. The best worm defense means doing what you’ve always done — keep your anti-virus software up to date, and patch, patch, patch — and backing it up with cultural changes that emphasize the value of security.
Worms do their damage quickly, and they’re getting faster. Worse, there is evidence reported by Symantec’s Deep Sight (currently being tested in InfoWorld’s labs) that penetration attempts are on the increase. Hameroff notes that “the time between disclosure of a vulnerability by a vendor and the malware that exploits it is getting shorter,” which is further evidence that worm creators are getting faster and better.
The best defense is to do as you’ve always done — but with increased vigilance. And while you’re at it, check for new security tools. This patching “consumes a lot of people resources,” says Ken Tyminski, chief information security officer at Prudential Financial, who notes that the company has been “very, very aggressive with patching.”
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