Vast numbers of users yesterday were doubtless disappointed to find that not only did they not have a secret admirer, but they had caught viruses in trying to open their "love letters." A new destructive worm swept computers around the world on Thursday, infecting systems in the Pentagon, the CIA, Parliament, and Ford Motor Company, to name just a few. Like the Melissa virus and so many of its...

Appearing at the INFOCOM conference in April 2003, this research paper provides insight into critical factors necessary to contain outbreaks of self-propagating code on the Internet. Citing the outbreak of the Code-Red worm in 2001 as an example, the authors justify the need for better methods of quickly controlling the spread of malicious code and minimizing damage. A couple scenarios for the...

Periodically a series of "important messages" about new email viruses make their way through various mailing lists. While savvy Internet users can usually immediately spot these hoaxes, they can be both intimidating and frightening to neophytes (not to mention the bandwidth wasted when the messages are passed on to other users.) One of the better sites that track both email and other computer...

The WildList is a free list of all known computer viruses that are spreading in the world, as compiled by volunteer antivirus experts of the WildList Organization International. It is updated monthly and, as one can imagine, is quite lengthy. The site has many other interesting features besides the list. For example, a somewhat humorous article by the WildList's founder describes his views on "how...

During the final weeks of July, a computer worm known as Code Red spread to over 350,000 computers on six continents. The two sites listed above provide details and analysis of the worm incident. This site, from University of California's Cooperative Association for Internet Data analysis (CIDA), provides a wealth of data on the origin and spread of Code Red. A neat feature is the animation of the...