RE: Hysterical first technical alert from US-CERT

[Stephen Martin <martins () tigerfuel com>]

> One thing nobody seems to want to recognize as a possibility here is
> that MyDoom.B didn't take off as much as MyDoom.A precisely BECAUSE of
> the US-CERT email. A lot of members of the press took that pretty
> seriously, and warnings on the evening network news shows that you
> shouldn't open these attachments are bound to have prevented at least
> some infections.

I would describe the MyDoom virus as hitting the main stream media several
days prior [01.27.03] to CERT's email. Most people [non-tech] that I talked 
to, after 01.27ish had already heard of it and were extremely wary of
opening 
anything.

Albeit their e-mail was a catapult to further media coverage, their report
was misrepresentative of the malware...which should be the bottom line.

Regards,
Stephen L. Martin