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Legal Remedies

Antivirus programs can help contain a virus that's in the wild, but some businesses and legislators want to stop viruses at their source. They advocate harsher laws to punish virus writers and even want to outlaw the writing and posting of virus code.

But most virus writers believe that they won't get caught, and they say that laws therefore won't deter them. In addition, in a 1999 case involving encryption, a U.S. Court of Appeals held that computer code is protected under the First Amendment. Furthermore, "malicious" is a slippery term to define. Any code that interferes with the smooth operation of a person's system could conceivably be characterized as malicious.

Legal wrangling aside, new viruses will always exploit software and system vulnerabilities and are bound to evade scanning software when first released. That's why virus education is important.

Sampath and Moritz say that users should be cautious both in opening e-mail and in surfing the Net. "The Internet is like a Mad Max movie--a lot of people with dune buggies and funny haircuts trying to shoot your head off," says Sampath. He advises users to surf the Net with the same caution they'd use while traveling over dangerous streets. "If you go to the grocery store and the drive is through a bad neighborhood, you're going to take a 10-mile detour. But on the Internet we happily browse along, not realizing which neighborhoods [are bad].

"What we're trying to build into people...is that anytime you go on the Internet, you need to protect yourself....We're looking at different ways of getting that message out--short of a virtual hand that comes out of your screen and grabs you."

So is it safe to conclude that antivirus companies won't be running out of business anytime soon? "It's not a bad time to be a security-focused company," says Moritz.

Kim Zetter is a senior associate editor and Stan Miastkowski is a contributing editor for PC World.