As it happens, one of the hats I wear at work and take very seriously is network security. Whenever a new virus or worm or whatever shows up, I hear about it because I am on a list of people who are notified by the group who is supposed to spread the alarm, SANS. Consequently, when I hear about something on TV about a new virus its usually old news by then. However, once in a while I hear follow-up stories that are quite surprising.

(18 September 2003)
Recently unsealed court documents indicate that Melissa worm author David Smith helped federal agents track down other malware writers, including Dutch worm writer Jan DeWitt and UK worm author Simon Vallor. Smith apparently used a false identity to communicate with the malware writers. Smith's sentence for damage caused by Melissa could have been 10 years, but was reduced to 20 months.

Don't know if you remember Melissa, like hurricane Andrew it may be a foggy memory unless you happened to get slammed by it. Melissa was a very expensive worm that took down a lot of business' computers; it's "final reckoning" was in the billions of dollars of lost revenue, downtime, and administration costs. The feds, though, anxious to nail other virus writers made a "deal with the devil" and lowered the penalty to just over a year and a half. Have you ever done the same? Done something that compromised. your faith? Kinda like speeding while driving to a bible study. Or photocopying copyrighted, do-not copy stuff for a bible class. It leaves you feeling uneasy about what you've done. I dunno, doesn't seem to me that the end justifies the means.

And here's a newer worm report I got. Check it out:

(18/19 September 2003)
The Swen e-mail worm arrives in the guise of a downloadable cumulative security patch for a variety of Microsoft vulnerabilities. The worm exploits a flaw in Internet Explorer that was disclosed in March 2001. In addition using its own SMTP engine to send itself to e-mail addresses harvested from infected computers, Swen can spread through IRC and peer-to-peer services; it turns on file sharing and creates a shared directory containing several copies of itself under different names. The worm is spreading. quickly

My son is always telling me that things aren't like they were when I was a kid. That he has instant messaging, etc and that I am "old-fashioned". I have to laugh, because ONE of us is surely old-fashioned. I remember telling my dad that things were different for me than they were for him. I mean, we had CB radios where we were all talking to each other all over town and all over the place. Very much like my generation's version of instant messaging (oops, did I say that? and how could he relate with me? I'm wrong NOW of course, because parents are always wrong and dumb when your kids are 15. (And never mind prayer, the original "instant messaging!") However, consider the report above. The “bad stuff” comes disguised as "good stuff'. Have we old-fashioned people heard of that one before?

Something about Angels of Light bringing a new gospel come to mind? How about Ehud and a "present" for a king? Maybe a kiss for the Son of God? If you want an example from outside of the bible, maybe you should think about wooden horses and Greeks bearing gifts.

It's nice to see that some things never change. God is in control, and the devil relies on the same old tired tricks. Unfortunately, people still keep falling for them! So here is a SANS bulletin for you: Watch out! Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

Randy