Spam, spyware, Trojans, viruses mean revenue potential for SA dealers

South Africa is one of the most spam-affected countries in the world, says Henry Peens, security brand manager at Computer Associates Africa. He highlights the challenges faced by many companies in their fight against spam, spyware, viruses and other malicious onslaughts. And he underlines the opportunities this brings to the dealer/reseller community.

South African organisations are today faced with a number of threats to their productivity. Among the most serious are those arising out of the Internet. These include spam and spyware - such as key-loggers and Trojans - as well as viruses and other malicious onslaughts.

Spam is flooding the Internet. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. It is the least venomous, but one of the most annoying, as well as time- and bandwidth-consuming, plagues.

In SA, where bandwidth is often in great demand, spam can result in costly bottlenecks and confusion.

Spam is also a threat to organisations` efforts to comply with good corporate governance practices, allowing pornography to invade the company.

A close cousin of spam is spyware. These are stealth programs automatically installed by some "shareware" products that are designed to collect personal information from your computer. These "adbots" come in various shades of grey. At their worst they are associated with credit card and identity fraud.

Anti-virus software and firewalls do not fully protect against the majority of spyware. Because it is commonly bundled with software downloads, attached to e-mails, or transmitted through networks, it can appear to be legitimate software. However, once installed spyware can be nearly impossible to detect and remove without the help of a dedicated spyware removal tool.

Almost all spyware systems are Trojans. According to legend, the Greeks won the Trojan war by hiding in a huge, hollow wooden horse to sneak into the fortified city of Troy. In today`s computer world, a Trojan is defined as a malicious, security-breaking program that is disguised as something benign.

You are at risk of having a Trojan implanted in your computer if you have downloaded music online recently, or your PC is running extremely slowly. A dead give-away is the popup ads that continue to appear despite your best efforts to close their windows.

Key loggers are programs that were originally used by the security administrator to monitor software products for ensuring their accountability - in terms of defining the activities of users and confirming their identities. Their purpose was to prevent security policy violations.

But many key logger and tracker programs have "gone bad". They have crossed the vague line between monitoring products for ensuring accountability, and spyware - the line between security management and security violation.

Computer viruses pose one of the most serious threats to computer security today. The recent MyDoom virus, which is estimated to have infected a quarter-million computers in a single day, was among the most vicious. Others were the Melissa virus of 1999, which was so powerful that it forced Microsoft and a number of organisations to disable their e-mail systems until the virus could be contained. The I-Love-You virus a year later had a similarly devastating effect.

The high profile and widespread publicity given to these attacks has resulted in a common misconception; that viruses are the most destructive malware on the planet and that anti-virus software is all that is required to guarantee protection.

Not so. Virus software is but one component of a comprehensive security solution or blanket which ideally will contain anti-spyware, anti-spam tools, URL blockers, firewalls and other high level resources.

The increasing incidents of security breaches, lost data and defaced Web sites have underlined the failure of basic anti-virus software and highlighted the need for the computer industry to address this problem - which is escalating at between 40% and 50% each year in SA.

This presents a significant opportunity to dealers and resellers to add value to their services and - once certified by a credible vendor - to move into the role of first line security support providers.

There is huge potential in this arena. Anti-spyware, for example, is increasingly sought-after by companies and individuals who perform Internet banking tasks and for whom anti-virus software alone cannot guarantee security.

In addition, organisations require support and guidance when it comes to addressing security throughout the application lifecycle.

With the growing adoption of Web-based technologies, applications have become far more dynamic, with changes taking place daily, sometimes hourly.

Dealers can assist customers to manage and implement the dozens of new security patches from application and infrastructure vendors that are released each week.

And they can help users to discover application vulnerabilities, block application-layer attacks, repair vulnerable Web sites, distribute patches and generally manage security events.

Underscoring industry moves in this arena, Computer Associates` acquisition of Netegrity, a leading provider of security software solutions, is a clear indication of the need to align industry resources and investments with security concerns.