AUTHOR: Jim Edwards DATE: 7/29/2004 11:07:00 AM ----- BODY: ===================================== 'MyDoom' Virus Potentially Threatens Google IPO - by Jim Edwards (c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved ===================================== The latest in a series of viruses hitting the Internet thissummer, MyDoom.O, attacked Google's website on Monday,potentially interfering with Google's upcoming IPO (initialpublic offering). Visitors to the Internet search giant (along with Yahoo,AltaVista, and Lycos) on Monday found themselves staring ateither a blank screen or a screen showing no search results. With Google's upcoming multi-billion dollar IPO, potentiallythe richest Internet offering ever, a shut down of this typecan put investor confidence into a tailspin. Google reportedly doubled its net income over this sameperiod last year, in large part to its innovative AdSenseprogram that pays website owners commissions on Google adsdisplayed on their websites. However, since Google reportedly generates 97% of itsrevenue from advertising, any loss of service for asignificant length of time (even a few hours) potentiallycosts the company millions of dollars in lost revenue. Such vulnerability to attack could also cause many investorsto think twice about paying over $100 a share when Googlegoes public. MyDoom.O actually represents a reincarnation of sorts of theMyDoom.A (a.k.a. Novarg) that terrorized the Web earlierthis year with denial of service attacks. The virus comes as an attachment to an email message withfile extensions of.bat, .cmd, .exe, .pif, .scr, or .zip. Once the virus infects the host computer, it opens up a portthat allows an attacker to access the computer and use itfor a variety of purposes. One, they can access the network to which the computer isattached. Two, they can use the computer as a relay station forsending thousands of spam messages or to spread the virus. Three, the attacker can install all sorts of nifty softwareon your computer, such as keystroke loggers that will recordand transmit things like your credit card numbers,passwords, social security number and any other informationyou type into your keyboard. In Google's case, the virus takes on a whole differentmenace. You see, an infected computer, along with thousands ofothers, can serve as a means to launch a coordinated attackto shut down a specific website, such as Google, by floodingit with millions of bogus page requests. This additional traffic either slows or completelyinterrupts the flow of legitimate traffic. If people can't view the site under attack, they can't clickon ads, Google doesn't make money, and that's not, in theimmortal words of a recent celebrity in the news, 'a goodthing.' Since this virus carries with it multiple threats, it servesyet again as a reminder to practice safe computingtechniques. Since the virus often comes masquerading as an attachmentfrom a trusted source, do not open any email attachmentsunless you know the source and expect to get an attachmentfrom them. Keep your anti-virus and firewall up to date. Since this virus is actually well-known, unless you don'tcarry any virus protection at all, your software shouldprotect you against infection if you simply update yourvirus definitions. -- Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and theco-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you howto use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targetedvisitors to your website or affiliate links... -=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? 'Turn Words Into Traffic' reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliatelinks... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com -=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- --------