Survival of the Fittest

press release

Computer Eco-System needs "Bio" Diversity

London, UK, 09:30 GMT 15th July 1999 - The primordial soup of computers, which the internet really is, carries on demonstrating all the traits of an eco-system. The evolution theory of Darwin with its tenets of 'Natural Selection' and 'Survival of the Fittest' is just as applicable to the computer eco-system as it is to its biological equivalent. The dependence of large corporations on a dominant brand of computer operating system has exposed them to a serious threat to their business continuity. "New infections continuously test dominance and require, by necessity, a radical approach of relying on a number of different operating environments and a bespoke security architecture." said D K Matai, Managing Director and Founder of mi2g software (www.mi2g.com).

Since the start of 1999, there have been three major virus attacks and several full scale Cyber Attacks on businesses and government departments. Melissa in March, Chernobyl in April and the fatal ExploreZip worm last month cost corporations huge unplanned and unbudgeted resources. Including ExploreZip, which disrupted several large organisations seriously for 48 to 72 hours between 10th and 14th June, downtime cost exceeded US $7 Billion.

The major Back Orifice 2000 (BO2K) Trojan Horse threat with source code, which arrived this month, has made it easy for anybody to hack into a system without detection. Each new breed will need to be detected separately making anti-virus tools obsolete as soon as they are released. Cyber Warfare has become a growing business menace as corporate resources are reaching a saturation point.

According to mi2g's SIPS division, the key question is how does one plan for business continuity in the coming years as organisations become totally reliant on IT networks and the threat continues to grow geometrically. The answer lies in continuous prevention rather than incidental anti-virus cure. A bespoke security architecture coupled with operating environment diversity ensures business continuity even when trading under the threat of non-stop Cyber Attack on one dominant operating system.
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Editor's Notes:

Each internet eco-system evolution year has shrunk to 30 days in '99, from 60 days in '97, and continues to diminish. Please check out www.mi2g.com NEWS and SECURITY sections for the background to Cyber Warfare and Viruses.