The Twin Towers of Evil
by Gary Woods

The two scourges of the Internet are Spam and Viruses. Up until now they've basically been two separate entities. People who create viruses are usually kids looking to cause the maximum amount of disruption and hopefully get people to write about it. Once people like Norton and McAfee get a handle on them they go away only to be replaced by the next onslaught. Spam on the other hand is primarily meant to sell stuff. Whether it's refinancing your home or enlarging body parts they're there for you.

The interesting thing about SoBig.f is that it's targeted anti-spam sites like spews.org, relays.osirusoft.com and sorbs.net with Osirusoft shutting down permanently and all the rest going down intermittently. Attacks on these kinds of sites are not new, but the number and sophistication of such attacks has increased dramatically.

The biggest problem is what's called a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack where thousands of so-called "zombie" machines request information from a site simultaneously, overwhelming the site's servers and sometimes crashing them.

According to experts in the security field spammers are using technology that virus writers have employed for years to launch their creations. The theory is that either the people who created SoBig are selling the information to spammers, or the spammers are funding the virus writers. What's really appalling is those same experts suggest bracing for more attacks, citing what appears to be an ominous battle between bulk e-mailers and anti-spam activists.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910