The Mywife.E Worm: Update # 2

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As we pass noon on Monday, here in Redmond, we are happy to see that the Mywife.E worm (aka CME 24) turned out to be more hype than reality. Our product support departments (including calls to our free virus support line: 1-866-PCSafety) around the world are currently reporting low call volumes with respect to this issue and the few calls they did receive tended to be inquiries based on word-of-mouth vs. infected users.  This is consistent with what most of our anti-malware partners are reporting.
 
It is my hope that incidents like this don’t get too over-hyped in the future. As members of the security community, I believe we have the responsibility to provide our audience with accurate data that properly reflects the threat. What's interesting is that in this case, data from an unreliable source (a web counter essentially controlled by a malware author) was the primary data source to determine the level of threat to the world. I fear that too much hype in situations that end in false alarms ends up diluting the meaning of warnings for true worldwide threats. That's not to say that customers should not have been warned for this threat, but these notices should be based on fact and broadcast with the best interest of the audience in mind.

Thanks,
-Matt

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Matt Braverman
Program Manager
Anti-Malware Technology Team
Microsoft Corporation

Team Blog: https://blogs.technet.com/antimalware

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Oh my...


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  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2006
    The comment has been removed