ZDNet UK: Workers face more mature threat from bigger worms

“That’s the hacker verdict on the Love Letter worm — and over
20 new permutations of it — that are continuing to strike
computers around the world. A report this week from a group of
developers dismissed the Love Letter attack as crude and
demonstrated — with code examples and a working model — how it is
possible to create a far more sophisticated virus that would work
across platforms, do its work with stealth and disappear before it
could be stopped.”

“Security experts concur that worms in the last year, such
as the Love Letter and Melissa, merely proved the concept.
Corporations should prepare for much more dangerous worms that
operate without user intervention.”

“Michal Zalewski, a Warsaw-based security specialist working for
the Internet division of Telekomunikacja Polska SA, worked on a
project to see if such a worm could be developed. The project was
called Samhain and was developed by a loosely knit group in Europe.
All work stopped on the project last year, but the group managed to
create a working model. … The code in the report is very Unix- or
Linux-specific, but Zalewski said the project developed enough code
for Windows to show that it is possible to spread to that platform
as well.”

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