Like previous big-time cyberworms, Mydoom runs on Microsoft Windows–two years after Bill Gates’s “Trustworthy Computing” memo, wherein he pledged an all-out effort to fight such scourges. Nonetheless, Michael Nash, head of Microsoft’s security business unit, says, “I feel very proud of the progress we’ve made,” ticking off a number of measures the company has made to patch its code and educate consumers. Unlike some previous blights, Mydoom doesn’t exploit any specific software flaw. But critics charge that Microsoft’s monopoly is itself the problem, creating a digital “monoculture” that presents a fat target for cybervandals.
Nash says that rogue software like Mydoom simply won’t run on computers upgraded with the free Windows Service Pack 2, due by June. But the update works only with Windows XP, used by fewer than half of Microsoft’s customers. Bottom line: expect more doom.
