NOT TOTALLY SAFE WITH ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

By S.Retnanathan

KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 (Bernama) -- If you think your computer and its data
are completely safe with periodically updated anti-virus software, you are
wrong, a computer virus expert revealed.

This, Symantec Hosted Services Group (Asia-Pacific and Japan) vice-president
Bjorn Engelhardt said, was because there were millions of viruses and spams
which were mass produced and put on the Internet that it would be virtually
impossible for any anti-virus programme to detect and prevent malware or
destructive programmes from destroying your computer and its data.

"This is why you need to monitor the traffic in the Internet. Using this
method you would be able to detect any unusual traffic and take immediate action
if you find something out of the ordinary.

"The anti-virus software works for known viruses and spams. What we are
worried about is malware which are new...they are created in the millions
everyday. For example, someone sends you an e-mail with a webpage address and
you click on it.

"Although your computer does not crash the minute you open the webpage, the
malware would plant itself on your computer, copy all the data and send it back
to the person who planted the malware," he said in an interview here recently.

He said computers crashing due to viruses seemed to be "out of trend" and
the trend now was to plant malware by spamming through mass e-mails and
"stealing" the users' personal information for illegal ventures.

The Asean and China markets are presently a prime target for such an
activity.

He said Symantec's analysis report revealed that there was a surge in spam
levels in February this year to 89.4 per cent, an increase of 5.5 per cent since
January.

While spam volumes grew in February, the size of spam messages
simultaneously shrank as did the number of spam e-mails containing attachments.

Over the past year, the number of attachments diminished from 10 per cent in
April last year to less than one per cent in February 2010, while the average
file size of spam e-mail fell from 5Kb in October 2009 to 3.3 Kb in February
2010.

Rather than attaching images to e-mails directly, spammers now chose to
host the image online with free image hosting service, thus reducing the average
file size of a spam e-mail, he added.

Last month, Engelhardt said, the global ratio of spam in e-mail
traffic from new and unknown bad sources was 89.4 per cent, which was one in
1.12 e-mails, denoting an increase of 5.5 per cent compared with January.

The global ratio of e-mail borne viruses in e-mail traffic from new and
previously unknown bad sources was one in 302.8 e-mails or 0.33 per cent in
February 2010, an increase of 0.02 per cent since January.

In February, 30.5 per cent of e-mail borne malware contained links to
malicious websites, an increase of 17.3 per cent since January.

He said an analysis of web security activity also showed that 41.6 per cent
of all web-based malware intercepted was new in Febraury, a decrease of 0.1 per
cent since January. A whopping average of 4,998 websites were identified daily
harbouring malware and other potentially unwanted programmes such as spyware.

He said Symantec had put Italy as the most spammed nation with 93.4 per
cent, followed by Germany (91.3 per cent), Netherlands (91.2 per cent) and
Australia (89.5 per cent).

China topped the most computer virus nation activity with one in 62.4
e-mails containing virus.

-- BERNAMA