According to experts, the new breed of virus writers are ready to strike on corporates. In some cases, it may even assume the dimension of a corporate espionage, designed to steal vital information and inflict heavy monetary damages.

During the first half of this year, estimates have shown that corporates incurred losses of over $7 billion worldover. There were also reports of large-scale theft of corporate data. It also saw the launch of Melissa, Explore.zip and Happy'99, both highly-powerful viruses. "Yes, the virus attacks are taking an ugly turn," says Gordon Twilegar, assistant vice-president of Computer Associates.

Look at the new breed and form of viruses; screen savers like Cellcom, websites, which hack into systems the moment one opens them,attractive e-mails like `Win a holiday' and free offers, and pen-pal columns. Clearly, the internet has given a new meaning to virus attacks.

The attacks have gained more sophistication as the viruses have become more hidden. A virus in an e-mail can strike 1 million computers in a minute and the world in three days. "The earlier virus exchanges were through floppies and CDs but now you need only a simple e-mail," says Govind Ramamurthy of MicroWorld, a security solution and network devices company. When Melissa struck atleast 3-5 million computers were affected in the US alone. It has known to have struck a leading Indian corporate and stock exchange, as well.As per the Wildlist, a compilation of viruses reported by researches all over the world, there were 255 known viruses last year while this year, the number has grown to nearly 400.

In 1997, an International Computer Security Association (ICSA) survey reported an average 62.5 encounters with viruses and look-like objects for every 1,000 computers.This figure was revised to 87 encounters the next year and this year so far, it may go up to well over 100.

Viruses, generally classified as macro, boot sector and mutli-partite, have also undergone a change in the way they affect systems. A few years ago, viruses only affected data and programme files but today they wreak havoc with computers.

Boot sector viruses are those that attach themselves to the boot sector of floppy diskettes while multi-partite viruses are those which act as both a boot sector and a file virus. Ripper is a prevailing virus of this category.Macro viruses, the most powerful so far, attach themselves to an application like MS Excel, which uses auto macros like auto open.

Auto macros are embedded in object linking and embedding (OLE) files, which Microsoft uses in most applications. OLE helps storage of related data files with the main file but once auto macros are affected by a virus, it can infect all other OLE files. The first reported macro virus was Concept.

These viruseshave a liking for particular OS and applications; like CIH has for Windows 95. But most macro-virus attacks have been concentrated on MS Word and Excel. Even cleverer polymorphic viruses like Marburg infect Windows '95 executable files and even delete anti-virus system files.

"Companies must have a security of multi-discipline. A strong authentication is important at the entrance, the e-mails as the networked environment poses the greatest threat," says Leigh Costin of Symantec Corp.

Here India may be spared to a marginal extent. Says Ramamurthy of MicroWorld, "hardly 20 per cent of our companies are fully networked. But not being heavily networked has its advantages as well as disadvantages.""Prevention is better than cure," says Costin of Symantec, which intercepts nearly 200 virus or look-alike objects everyday at its labs. Virus education, a comprehensive security policy and an upgraded anti-virus software should be the way to prevent attacks.

An intelligent anti-virus solution and a strong firewallcould be an initial solution. "Intrusion detection, raising alarm levels and a session wall to support the firewall are the next ideal set-up," Twilegar says.

A proper back-up system and an effective gateway level detection are being suggested by Ramamurthy as he feels that intrusion will be heavy into networks. "Many companies are too careless to take precautions," he says.The virus attacks have a human side, too. Looking at the psychology of virus writers and hackers, experts feel that these might have been programmers deprived of big opportunities. But not in all cases. However, all agree that renewed vigour among them may prove dangerous to many networks. The biggest worry, however, is about the fate of e-commerce even before it becomes a global trading mode.