Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!labrea!glacier!jbn
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Virus programs
Message-ID: <17272@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 2 Jan 88 19:29:12 GMT
References: <2242@crash.cts.com>
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 42
Summary: Protection against virus programs


     Clearly one of the major priorities is to protect original copies
of software from corruption.  In the 5.25" market, much software is
distributed on disks that have no write-protect notch and thus cannot
be overwritten on ordinary disk drives.  (Production disk copiers, the
big machines which feed disks from a hopper, will write on "write-protected"
disks.)  The 3.5" market needs to go in this direction.  One could certainly
get disks without write-permit sliders if you ordered a large enough
quantity.  This is "tamper-resistant packaging" for software.  That's
a first step.

     Software vendors must be very careful to avoid the distribution of
contaminated disks.  Any vendor that lets a product out with a virus in
it will face litigation and major adverse publicity.  Thorough
and prolonged beta testing of new products will be necessary.  This may
slow down the product release cycle.

     Over the next few years, we may expect to see more virus programs.
But in the future, they may be introduced with more deliberate intent
and more precise targeting.  Imagine, for example, a virus that does
damage only to large spreadsheet data files, changing only a few bits here
and there.  Such a virus could pass invisibly through the hobbyist community
and developers, who are generally not heavy spreadsheet users.  It might
find its way into various commercial products without being detected.
Once inside a big company, it would eventually be noticed that the numbers
in spreadsheets were sometimes wrong, but it could be some time before the
cause was deduced.  The end result might be a general conclusion that
some software package or computer system was unreliable.  

     Some group such as the Greens (the European environmental/antitechnology
movement) might get into virus programs; they're already into minor sabotage.
This has the potential to become a minor weapon of international terrorism.
From the terrorist's point of view, the risks are low, the damage is to
large institutions, and the amount of effort required to mount a defense
is much larger than that required to mount an attack.  In addition, such
attacks will not produce the degree of public opposition and police
activity that physical terrorism does.

     It's not clear how severe the problem will get.  But it will probably
get worse before it gets better.

					John Nagle