2003 Review of the Year: Security
December 2003
The last year has seen several great strides taken in IT security, but almost as many were backwards as forwards; these are troubling times.In terms of hacking activity there's been a lot of high profile arrests. Lynn Htun, head of hacking group Fluffi Bunni, got caught chatting to exhibitors at InfoSec by a group of visiting policemen who recognised her.
British programmer Gary McKinnon was arrested in June for hacking US Navy supply computers, although the news that his victim was still using NT4 was nearly as disturbing. British and US police joined forces to beat two of the Thr34t-Krew group.
On the downside the number of hacking attacks against corporate servers continues to rise.
The vast majority of these are script kiddies using tools they don't understand. Good patching practice and sensible firewall policy should stop them.
But Microsoft rightly got its wrist slapped over a claim that its software would make hackers extinct. Then again, Linux is not immune from flaws either.
On the virus front it's been a prolific year and long-term prospects are not good. August was the worst month for viruses in IT history.
Once again script kiddies are quick to chop and change viruses and we're up to version 12 of MiMail already.
But somewhere out there in the ether there's a lot of out-of-date antivirus software because holdouts like Klez are still hanging around.
It's been a good year for Britain's National High Tech Crime Unit, on the whole, and other countries are cottoning on to the lead the team is taking.
Despite the aforementioned arrests, the Unit has increased the reporting of corporate crime with beneficial results.
Piracy continues to bedevil the industry. A British man was jailed after the British Software Alliance helped customs nail an eBay fraud, and overall our software piracy rates are among the lowest in Europe.
While the entertainment industry declared war on peer-to-peer networks it has failed so far in the courts. Trying to sue children isn't likely to help its cause.
Finally spam now makes up the majority of email and is moving onto instant messaging.
Spammers too are getting wise to anti-spam software. Governments are legislating in the EU and US but critics are already finding problems.
All in all a very mixed year. Let's be careful out there.
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