The New World of Viral Gang-warfare

For a long time now we techies have been cautioning you to ensure your computer is secured with an anti-virus. We’ve told you not to open email attachments, not to give your bank details away, and not to click on links within your emails. Granted, you hardly listen to us, but we’ve told you! Well, this is why we’ve been so adamant about it.

There is a new gang war taking place in the world at the moment – and it’s taking place within the internet itself. Through all the famously dubbed tubes, two major viruses – or worms – are battling it out for internet supremacy.

Warezov and Zhelatin – as identified by Kaspersky Labs in Moscow – have been targeting each other for some months now. They are both responsible for the majority of spam and malware that is circulating through the internet, and have led many an unsuspecting (and apparently deaf) computer user down unwanted paths; pornography, phishing scams, etc.

Each attack is meant to draw your computer to one side of this gang war, or another. All the computers that are combined under a single worm or virus – a botnet – are the cause for the ever increasing spread of viruses, even to computers that do take some measures to protect themselves.
And, while this is may strike you as a singularly unique incident, it is not the first gang war to take place over the internet. In 2004 viruses under the names of Bagle, MyDoom and Netsky battled it out for a similar prize, over a course of several months. Surprisingly, as a result of the battling between Warezov and Zhelatin, Bagle has reactivated and is joining in the online battleground as a third participant.

So all I can say is what we’ve been saying for years; don’t open email attachments, do not click on any links within your emails – even if it says it’s from your bank (especially not then), and never give your personal or financial details out over the internet.

Posted by Josh Hill