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Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus.
Editor
Greg Swain, B.Sc.(Hons.)
PUBLISHER'S LETTER
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ISSN 1030-2662
2
SILICON CHIP
The dangers of computer viruses
Several years ago , when reports of computer viruses first began to appear
in the media, I did not take them too seriously. Of course, I could see that the
philosophy was inherently correct - any large population of complex
organisms such as animals or plants, in close contact with each other, is
always ripe for exploitation by an opportunist organism such as a predator,
parasite, bacteria, virus or whatever. That is why the human population is
so vulnerable to viruses - there are huge numbers of us and because of
international travel, any new virus can go around the world in a matter of
months.
For computers, the situation is very similar. There are now tens of
millions of computers around the world and because they are in close
contact with one another, via modems, bulletin boards and software swapping, computer viruses can go around the world and infect very large
numbers of computers in a matter of weeks or even days.
No computer can be regarded as safe. In our offices, we have already had
several occasions when we have detected viruses, once in new software
which had been sent to us in a review package. Most recently though, one
of our machines "caught" the Michelangelo virus and the reason was that it
happened a few days before we had obtained the latest virus scanning
software. As I write this, on February 25th, it is possible that millions of
computers have been infected by this latest piece of devilry.
What I want to know is this: what do the authors of these nasty little
programs think they are doing? Their germ-like creations can lead to untold
data being lost in computers and millions of man-hours in retrieving it.
They could also lead to very large losses in some companies with the result
that they may go out of business and throw all their employees out of work.
When you think about it, computer viruses are little more than economic
sabotage. If an insurance company or bank is ultimately infected, it could
have disastrous affects on the economy of any country. Think about the
billions of dollars locked up in superannuation funds and you will see what
I mean.
In my opinion, anyone who creates or knowingly passes on a computer
virus is a criminal. The ramifications of computer viruses are extremely
serious and there seems little doubt that sooner or later, a computer virus
will cause a disaster. In the meantime, be on your guard as much as you can.
Make backups regularly, keep up to date with anti-virus software and be
wary of bulletin boards and pirate copies of software.
Leo Simpson
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