Staying Secure

Way back on September 21, 2001 I wrote a piece called Cyber
Terrorism. The world and my mind was in turmoil at that time. What happens in
case terrorism strikes the cyber world? It may not kill people but can cause
major disruption in day to day life.

It is not nice to report that it is happening-and at an
increasing rate. And the tools are virus attacks and spam.

• Ferris Research, a US firm that studies messaging and
  collaboration platforms, has predicted that the global cost of spam will
  reach $130 bn in 2007. This cost was $66 bn in 2005. US alone will notch up
  $44 bn in 2007, they say.

• Spam is growing, and at an astonishing rate, from China and
  South Korea region, according to Australian firm, Marshal. If the trend
  continues, about 90% of the mail we receive will be spam by the year-end, it
  says. Consider this: Trend Micro's Network Security Services collects
  approximately 1.5 bn spam mails daily from just 3,000 business customers.

• According to US analyst firm, Infonetics Research, about
  2.2% of the turnover of large organizations is being lost to network
  downtime due to security attacks. The percentage in the case of small and
  medium organizations is half a percent. All these amount to millions of
  dollars.

• Internationally, 9% of IT budgets are now being spent on
  security-I forget the source of this data.

  If we are not worried we should be. Spam is not merely unsolicited advertising. It can bring with it viruses and Trojans, malware, and more. The sheer volume can hog a company's resources and bring work to a standstill

The world response to this threat has been muted. There have
been announcements. Various Governments have said that they will work together
to eliminate the scourge. In January 2004 Bill Gates announced at the World
Economic Forum that Microsoft is working on technologies which will make it
possible to eliminate spam by 2006-that is last year. AOL and Yahoo announced
that email services will be paid for and will thus help in cutting down
unsolicited mail. Email remains virtually free.

The industry and user response has been to build cyber
fortresses against sniper fire and guerilla attacks. More security devices, more
software, more patches, more firewalls and more viruses and spam. And, of
course, more revenues and higher budgets for the industry and IT departments.

Along the way many solutions have been put into operation
sporadically. Like charge for email, identifying the offending machines, making
the ISPs responsible, and spam-lists. I am sure that there would be more if a
comprehensive list was made.

Somewhere along the line one gets the feeling that this has
become a war that nobody really wants to win. The benefits of email are so high
that an occasional problem is handled and the messages start pouring in and out
again. The costs are high-but they are distributed and so no one has a grand
plan for a systematic and coordinated effort. There is no agency or association
that is

willing to spearhead a campaign that will be a long and taxing one.

Given this scenario it is tough to see how the picture can
change dramatically. Maybe some spammer will develop a solution that can be
marketed and sold in huge numbers! Maybe we will have a 9/11 equivalent that
will cause a shake up and get some real action going.

Yes. I am aware that there are no solutions that this article
offers. The existing ones are available on the net. And there do not seem to be
any truly exciting ones. Till they emerge, users will have to make do with what
is available.

The author is editor-in-chief of CyberMedia, the publisher of Dataquest.
He can be reached at shyamm@cybermedia.co.in