Last bit on SoBig

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

Lots of folks are pitching a fit with MS over this bad boy, and certainly MS deserves some blame for the faults in their software. On the other hand, Outlook is getting better at recognizing dangerous attachments (at least the beta of 2003 seems to me to be better at it), it’s starting to not run HTML by default, and MS generally seems to want to get these improvements out there in the general public and make them safer.

Also, you’ve got to lay a bunch of the blame on the people who write these things, whose sole purpose seems to be to disrupt normal internet life for everyone. They’re easily the “baddest” guys in this story.

Lastly, and perhaps most surprisingly, you have to blame end users. This is not Blaster, which got in because you hadn’t gotten around to patching a machine. That’s a shame that users didn’t get their machines patched, but understandable to a degree. SoBig requires end users to open attachments or download infected files from file sharing networks to spread. How long have IT people been lecturing end users about the dangers of these activities? How long have people been told not to open attachments unless they know 100% what it is and who sent it. How many times do people have to be told how to handle downloads and attachments before they get it? Or do they just not care?

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