Re: Conficker business productivity loss

[Nick FitzGerald <nick () virus-l demon co uk>]

Michael Blanchard wrote:

> Not that I've seen yet.  Any bets to what the media says?
>
> I can see it now...
>
>   "5 billion dollar loss to companies overnight due to Conficker!"

I bet the media says (almost) nothing.

Experience tells me _very loudly_ that when the media gets on board a clearly 
very badly over-hyped TEOTWAWKI malware event that turns out to be the expert-
expected fizzer of a non-event, it quietly sinks from media view with scarcely an 
audible splutter.

I literally just heard whille writing the above, on CNN (International -- 
specifically the CNN Today segment out of Asia (i.e. Hong Kong)) something like 
"the much expected Conficker event has not seen anything major happen ... yet" 
and I think that's the first media mention I've heard of it in all day...

Back when "outbreak" (mostly mass-mailing virus) malware events were almost a 
daily event the media slowly learnt _NOT_ to take one or two, or even three or 
four, apparent "experts" saying "the sky is falling" and came to depend on quite 
a deal of cross-checking with several "real experts" (as determined by the 
media's growing experience with getting it horribly wrong _A LOT_).

The trouble is, today, that many of those journos have moved on and those lessons 
are not available to enough of today's media hacks, so welcome to 1999 all over 
again...

All the "real experts" have been saying, whenever asked, "we don't know what will 
happen, we don't know when and it's unlikely it will actually happen on 1 April" 
but that doesn't make as "good" of a headline, byline or surtitle streamer as 
"Worldwide computer meltdown predicted for April 1st"...

So, we real experts get to stand back and say "I told you so -- again" again.

The more things change, the more they stay the same!

Next...


Regards,

Nick FitzGerald


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