I Hate SoBig

Last night while I was watching the game and typing my post on personal responsibility and the Constitution, I got frustrated. Not only by the game and its effect on my ability to maintain a clear train of thought, but because in a ten minute span I got hammered by ten SoBig.F virus infected emails.

Now it doesn't really do anything, as my anti-virus software picks it up and erases it. But each time, it pops up a warning window on the computer telling me it caught another SoBig.

I think that the Blaster worm tried to hit me, maybe three times total. Klez, I think twice. But this SoBig is just constantly hammering me. Since I started getting them 4 days ago, I must have gotten hit with nearly 100 infected emails.

And some are theorizing that this is only a warm-up virus for the SoBig creator. They believe that whoever is creating SoBig will have a new version, SoBig.G out on 9/11. They basically point towards SoBig as being some great techno-terrorist plot that will use the memory of 9/11 to intensify the effects of their attack.

Now the article does contain some factual inaccuracies, such as the windowsupdate.com comment (Microsoft took it down voluntarily, not a denial of service attack), which probably makes it wise to take any 9/11 conspiracy theories with a grain of salt. But if the SoBig.F virus will expire on 9/10 that does lend some credence to the idea that 9/11 might in fact be the day for some new and devastating virus attack. I have no idea.

Is it possible to protect the internet against these kinds of attacks? I don't think so. There are too many people who use absolutely no common sense when it comes to suspicious email attachments. Too many people fail to use or to update their virus scanning software. They forget or choose not to update Windows to close the security loopholes. In short, there are too many weaknesses in the armor to truly inoculate the internet against these viruses.

So I guess I'll have to keep my anti-virus up to date and make sure that I have the email client off while I'm writing or doing anything even semi-important.