"Computer Economics, which is in the business of trying to measure the dollar amount estimated that the worldwide impact was over 600 million dollars. And those kinds of costs were basically in the area of systems that went down, the denial of services to basic computer systems and especially the repair costs of cleaning up after this virus."
Kevin Haley of Symantec. Symantec, one of the top makers of anti-virus software, which has an interest in reminding us all of the anniversary. Sort of like your local jewelry store sending a reminder out about your wedding anniversary. But Nimda... was a pretty significant intrusion... .
"What Nimda did was kind of blaze the trail for this new kind of threat, a blended threat, which really takes a virus attack and adds hacker attack elements to it as well. And unfortunately it has been copied and the blended threat is really with us today and will continue to be."
Nimda is still out there... .and has been joined by other so called blended viruses... .like Klez. A lot of computers are sold with anti-virus software pre-loaded. What a lot of people don't realize... until it is too late... is that the software won't do them much good if they don't keep it updated with current virus definitions. And don't ignore operating system or browser security patches either when they come along. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.