Peter Sinclair: Post-Y2K virus epidemic in wings

By PETER SINCLAIR

All over the world millennialists are emerging from their bunkers and blinking, somewhat sheepishly, in the calm light of a new century.

But some prophets of doom are holding out – there's still a faint hope that all will not be well. Coming soon to a computer near you: Y2K viruses…

Hackers have been sitting up late for months practicing their dark art, crafting spiteful surprises for the year 2000, many of them designed to trigger this month and next.

Melissa and her siblings remain at large, some now tweaked to be Y2K-sensitive. W32.Mypics.Worm is one, entering the system as an email attachment disguised as a picture. It propagates automatically on Windows and NT platforms, overwriting the checksum data in the host's CMOS memory. On rebooting, it will attempt to reformat all local drives and is considered dangerously destructive.

Computer Associates warn of several new horrors: Lucky 2000, which erases Windows files; Esmeralda.807, which temporarily freezes the computer when a file is opened; and Spaces.1633 which affects the start-up function.

One has even stolen the name of my i98FM radio show: W95.LoveSong.998 is a memory-resident Windows virus unleashed in Korea. When an infected file is executed, the virus loads into memory and infects all accessed files. The payload is quite engaging: it plays a popular Korean love-song on the PC speaker. This virus is designed to trigger after February 16th.

Feliz.Trojan is a new class of virus from Portugal which disguises itself as a benign application. Unlike true viruses, these Trojans do not replicate, but when run immediately delete certain files and leave the user with an evil-looking face crowing "Feliz Ano Novo!" ["Happy New Year!"].

Computer Associates also warn of a new Word macro virus called Armageddon, which infects Word documents by spreading via emails, shared drives and floppies; and a new worm, Wscript/Kak, which will infect Windows 98 systems running Outlook Express 5.0 even if users don't open email attachments.

Newest of all is a class of malicious programmes designed to turn any number of innocent remote computers into zombies which launch a 'denial of service' attack on a targeted website or server. Tribe Flood Network can even - by exploiting a hole in Apple's networking software - enslave the Mac OS as well as Windows. Fix available at http://asu.info.apple.com

Security website Packet Storm claims to have discovered a pernicious variant called TFN2K which can also co-opt the Windows NT and Unix systems.

It's rumoured this class of programme has already brought some networks to their knees, and attacks have been so persistent that several sites – notably the Pentagon and the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the US government payroll – were forced to shut down early this month.

One safeguard against this type of assault is BlackICE Defender.

Some glitches, though, may not be viruses at all. If your company system runs 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and you turned it off over the holidays, you could have a problem restarting it if a build-up of gunge around the hard drive's slider assembly, housing the read/write head, solidifies and makes the head stick to the Landing-Zone, a drive area where it rests when the disk is still.

It's reported that, as with many unruly appliances, a stern thump can sometimes restore functionality.

The good news: few of the Y2K viruses are yet in wide circulation. Hackers take holidays, too…

BookMarks

HOLIDAYS [1]: OneHome House & Garden


Gracious summer living TVNZ-style with indoor/outdoor ideas from several of its TV shows – an attractive and useful synergy. Introduced late last year, it's been updated to incorporate a gee-whiz Virtual Kitchen Designer which still has a few glitches: it pushes mainly one brand of appliance and I found its preview window erratic, managing to install only a fridge and a benchtop unit before crashing out of the whole thing. But persevere – you may have better luck.

Advisory: food and wine will be served shortly…

HOLIDAYS [2]: Travel Online

Should you eat the food, drink the water? Wanderlust on the net, with a new chat-room featuring expert travellers on their specialist destinations opening this Sunday. Learn stuff you won't read about in the brochures at one of New Zealand's leading online travel outfits.

Advisory: first up: Vanuatu…

HOTTEST: Webshots

Currently one of the Web's most popular free downloads, this desktop utility features hundreds of stunning photographic themes which automatically load and change at preset intervals. New graphics daily, and the easy-install, fully customisable software is some of the best I've seen.

Advisory: outstanding.

COOLEST: Protocol Cosmetics

Transform yourself into a geek goddess with cosmetics for the wired world. Using the handy Mouse applicator, lay a foundation of LCD "which can bend and twist light". Shade on some Boolean Blue eye-shadow and your choice of lip-gloss – 'Glitch' [a sheer cybersilver], 'Search-Engine Red' or 'Plug'n'Play Pink'. Add a touch of Megabyte Glitter Gel – 'Corrupt' is nice – and finish with a shimmering PixelDust powder. Voila! Every nerd's dream of heaven…

Advisory: wild silicon…

petersinclair@email.com