Despite its virulence, the Klez worm is ignored by the newspapers and dismissed by the digerati. Could the demographics of its victims be a factor? Repeatedly dubbed the most common virus ever in recent reports from on-line newsmongers, it has yet to break into print in any interesting way.
A box of news clippings near my desk, most taken from the front pages of daily newspapers, proclaim the arrival of Melissa, Loveletter, Code Red, Nimda and even Kournikova. However, nothing for Klez or its equally press-shy older brother, SirCam.
Even the National Infrastructure Protection Center, a usually reliable source for high impact alarms and panics on wandering malware, was unusually reticent over this big event in computer virus history.
Sure, Klez made the front page of the NIPC Web site, but it was way down the list, well below things like the Spida worm which the organization noted was dangerous because "it copies the password file and the network configuration of the infected machine and sends the information elsewhere via e-mail." Klez, too, snatches e-document rubbish off the infected and sends it willy-nilly around the Net but this lacks the alluring quality inherent in the phrase "password file."
News source: The Reg
