VB2002: ''cyber-terrorists will win, but please buy AV software until then''

Rob Rosenberger, Vmyths co-founder
Monday, 6 January 2003 YOU CAN'T HELP but feel sorry for the folks who organize the Virus Bulletin conference each year. The angel of death hounds them wherever they go.

Speakers & prominent attendees at VB2002 agree the death of the Internet will come soon. Very soon. "In the next 5-10 years," Vesselin Bontchev (FRISK) boldly predicted.

VB2001 took place in Czechoslovakia. In September. Right after terrorists shut down all U.S. airports for three days. Many speakers and attendees (myself included) canceled their plans to visit the former Soviet bloc nation. VB2002 took place in New Orleans. In September. Right as a hurricane grounded all air traffic in the region and threatened a city-wide evacuation. Many speakers and attendees either canceled their flights or arrived late after driving rental cars from distant airports. VB2002 proved more troublesome when U.S. customs officials impounded most of the conference materials after seeing the word "virus" printed on two coffee cups. They tested the cups for anthrax, smallpox, and other such angels of death. Ah, the irony of it all. Like I said: you can't help but feel sorry for the Virus Bulletin conference organizers. VB2003 will take place in a nation that harbors a known cyber-terrorist who very nearly destroyed e-commerce in 2000. (Call me crazy but I say we invite the kid. Let's tempt the hand of fate for once! C'mon, who's with me?) I've got three words for Canada's air traffic controllers: HEADS UP, EH! It seemed as if everyone at VB2002 realized the threat of a hurricane outstrips the threat of a computer virus. Yep, it sure seemed that way — right up to the very last question of the very last panel on the very last day. Then the fearmongers emerged from their storm cellars... Don't worry: I recorded the virus hysteria for your amusement. Some of the speakers and some prominent attendees at VB2002 agree the death of the Internet will come soon. Very soon. Dmitry Gryaznov (Network Associates) declared "[the] Internet can be brought down" and Vesselin Bontchev (FRISK) declared "it will happen in the next 5-10 years." When the Internet dies, virus experts predict the global commercial airline industry could expire with it. The global banking & financial world could die, too. I don't make this stuff up, folks. The Internet will die very soon from a globally coordinated cybertastrophe and we'll almost certainly bury western civilization with it. Worst of all: the antivirus industry can't do a thing to stop it. But please continue to buy antivirus software until then, okay?

"It may be sufficient to take down whole economies," Bontchev warned.

THE COMING DEATH of the Internet will topple the U.S. as a superpower and turn it into a second- or third-world country. Read or listen to the VB2002 transcript for all the proof you need:

00:00 Panel moderator Carey Nachenberg (Symantec):
And I have one final question for folks (I think we're probably running out of time [inaudible]). This is a big-picture question here for the panel and the people in the audience, and that is, what do we think the likelihood is that a — Rob Rosenberger will love this, by the way, if he's still here — that a fast-spreading blended threat will actually do material damage not to individual companies on the millions-of-dollars scale but to [unknown] economies over the next two to three years. In other words, is this just a dream that's really not going to happen, or do we really have to think about this and the impact that these things will have on a national or international scale? Would anybody like to defend that, or— either scenario if that makes sense. The likeli[hood]— is it inappropriate to say that our infrastructure is extremely dependent upon computing systems, "A", and "B" that existing technologies that we use can be [unknown] and really cause a lot more damage than we've seen? Panel first.
00:55 Dmitry Gryaznov (Network Associates):
If you— well, let me say it— put it, like, in very few words. [The] Internet can be brought down.

"[The] Internet can be brought down," Gryaznov blurted. What a great start! A top virus expert at Network Associates needed only five words to imply his firm doesn't yet do enough to protect its customers from a digital disaster. Gryaznov should know since his firm supplied cyber-smallpox technology for years to a declared enemy of western capitalism. (By the way: I loved it when Symantec employees used the term "blended threat" in New Orleans. It sounds like something Carey Nachenberg could order from a bartender in the French Quarter, doesn't it? "Yeah, I'll take a hurricane and my wife wants a blended threat...") Two panelists stepped forward to offer sober commentary. Klas Schöldström (Brainpool Consulting) dismissed any predictions — good or bad — as "just speculation." John Norris (Nortel) questioned if the Internet's demise would cause "material harm" in any true sense:

Translation: you're completely screwed by the end of this decade. But please continue to buy antivirus software until then, okay?

01:03 Nachenberg:
Okay. (Klas?)
01:09 Klas Schöldström (Brainpool Consulting):
Well, it's [this] kind of predictions that we are relying too much [on] because, you know, it's just speculation, you know. It's not [inaudible]. I think there is— [this] virus threat is a part of our lives, so it should be [unknown]. I don't think hardly that anything really new and—
01:38 Nachenberg:
—Or could happen, [unknown].
01:40 Schöldström:
Yeah.
01:40 Nachenberg:
Okay. [inaudible]
01:43 John Norris (Nortel):
I'll say that it's likely that there will be threats out there that are worse than Nimda and can do a lot more harm than Nimda did. From my experience, worms like Nimda and Code Red 2 really only infected about 0.5% or 1% of [a] corporate network, but that sort of tells us that it can get a lot worse. But whether or not it's going to cause material damage or material harm to a corporation—
02:18 Nachenberg:
—Or to an economy for that matter—
02:19 Norris:
—Or to an economy—
02:20 Nachenberg:
Right.
02:20 Norris:
—That, we haven't seen.

"Aw, Rob," you moan. "Forget the boring commentary. Where's the good stuff?" Patience, Grasshopper: it'll heat up again in part 2...

[second edition]

[continued in part 2:
Maybe the Internet should die]

[Editor's note: This column was updated to correct a transcription error. Report any other transcription errors here. Rebuttals go here.]