SIT182 – Real World Practices for Cyber Security

Investigate about `Y2K crisis’

In order to be able to identify if Y2k was a computer security problem or not, it is important to understand what Y2k, actually was. Y2K had become a bit of concern stemming from the clash of the upcoming year of 2000. So changing the digits from 1999 to 2000, could have resulted in headaches for many people across different industries (Uenuma. F, 2019). Though there were many issues that were related to Y2K, including many security issues but to term it as a computer security problem, would be wrong. In reality, it was just a bug that had to be dealt with by the programmers and coders, to avoid a number of issues related to it. It was a problem that had widespread implications for many economies, however the severity of the issue or the problem was not the same across all industries (Keith. B, Bruce. K, 1999).

The Y2k bug is considered to be a great glitch in computer systems that had the ability to destroy civilization at the stroke of midnight on the millennium (Stebakov. H, 2019). It could have affected the life of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Because of the way on how the whole issue was being highlighted many people took it way too seriously and eventually believed that the world come to an end. In US alone, the Y2K bug had a big impact as it costed the US Government nearly over $100 billion (Sheen. T, 2019). Many reports were made about the Y2K bug, programmers, project managers and many other digital workers were getting paid to do unproductive work. It’s because of the Y2K bug, that gave a strong and valid reason to pretty much every company to clean up their software.

Talking about the reason, that caused the Y2K bug, than it won’t be wrong to say that Y2k bug was very simple. Majority of the companies used to store dates in the format of YY-MM-DD, storing only two digits. At the time of compiling such programs, the programmers didn’t realize how the year format would change when the year 2000 would come (Serafino. J, 2019). So the incapability or the computer systems to not able to make changes in the date format, was the major reason behind the Y2K bug. To conclude, Y2K bug is something that was a computer coding and programming issue, but due to the fact that many companies and businesses were likely to be affected because of it, many took it way too seriously.

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References

Keith. B and Bruce. K, 1999, ‘The impact of Y2k Bug’, Business Economics, issue. 1, pp. 39-43.

Serafino. J, 2019, ‘7 Problems Y2K Actually Caused’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/610706/problems-caused-by-y2k>

Sheen. T, 2019, ‘Y2K Did have an impact – Just not what you thought’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://smallville.com.au/y2k-did-have-an-impact-just-not-what-you-thought-part-1/>

Stebakov. H, 2019, ‘If you think the millennium bug was a hoax, here comes a history lesson’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://theconversation.com/if-you-think-the-millennium-bug-was-a-hoax-here-comes-a-history-lesson-129042>

Uenuma. F, 2019, ‘20 Years Later, the Y2K Bug Seems Like a Joke—Because Those Behind the Scenes Took It Seriously’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://time.com/5752129/y2k-bug-history/>

  1. Investigate about ` ILOVEYOU’ malware, and answer the following questions:
  2. a)  What type of malware is this threat – justify your answer? (Refer to Week 2’s lecture for different type of malware)

ILOVEYOU was a computer virus, or many considered it as a worm that would spread through an email. Anyone who would have received an email with a subject stating Love Letter that had the attachment named as ILOVEYOU, was simply a virus (Strickland. J). ILOVEYOU malware was a self-spreading virus that would replace all files in the computer with media extensions. The virus didn’t stop after changing the file format, but once the formats are changed, it would than send an identical email to all the people in the user contact list (Franceschi. L, 2015).

Franceschi. L, 2015, ‘Love Bug: The Virus That Hit 50 Million People Turns 15’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d73jnk/love-bug-the-virus-that-hit-50-million-people-turns-15>

Strickland. J, ’10 Worst Computer Viruses of All Time’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://computer.howstuffworks.com/worst-computer-viruses2.htm>

2. b)  What is a malware `payload’, and what payload is used in this malware? (technical discussion expected)

In computing terms, a payload refers to the component of a computer virus that usually executes a malicious activity. The threat level of the virus can be analysed on the basis of the speed it spreads and the overall damage it causes (techopedia.com, 2016). The virus ILOVEYOU was a file based on a Visual Basic script, that consist of the virus payload. In case if the file is deleted without opening, the computer and all the files in the system won’t be affected. The payload use by ILOVEYOU malware is in the form of email spamming and damaging files of certain extensions (Portuguez. A, 2000).

Portuguez. A, 2000, ‘VBS_LOVELETTER’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/threat-encyclopedia/archive/malware/vbs_loveletter>

Techopedia.com, ‘What Does Payload Mean’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://www.techopedia.com/definition/5381/payload>

 

3. c)  Variants of this malware were released. Did the `Payload’ used for this malware also change? (if no, then how was this malware still effective?)

The different variants were released to the initial ILOVEYOU malware, for example, one of the variants that came out was in the form of “VERY FUNNY.vbs” with a subject line “JOKE”. Though, even this type of scam is simply a spam, but people would still fall for it. The payload was the same as the ILOVEYOU malware (Lemos. R, 2000). There are new variants of the malware being released and are still in circulation. Many variants of the virus in some cases had a major impact on many different programs and data (Kimez. R, 2020). The reason, new variants are still in circulation is mainly because of the fact that they can elude anti-virus software that was designed to block the I Love You bug.

Kimez. R, 2020, ‘New Malware Variants More Malicious Than ILOVEYOU BUG’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < http://leptalcpondche.over-blog.com/2020/03/New-Malware-Variants-More-Malicious-Than-ILOVEYOU-Bug.html>

Lemos. R, 2000, ‘New Variant of ‘ILOVEYOU’ worm, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-variant-of-iloveyou-worm/>

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4. d)  The creators of this malware were identified but set free. What was the rea

Onel De Guzman, is the guy who was held responsible for creating the ILOVEYOU virus. Guzmen, was 24 years old at the time he created the virus, a college dropout student in Philipines, who was arrested for creating and releasing such a deadly malware. Mr. Guzmen was released and all the charges against him were dropped as no proper evidence was found against him. In one of the court hearings, Mr. Guzmen admitted that he does create viruses, but he himself wasn’t sure that if the ILOVEYOU malware was one of his viruses (Landler. M, 2000). On the basis of having no proper evidence and proof that Guzmen is the actual creator of the ILOVEYOU virus, he was released.

References:

Landler. M, 2000, A Filipino Linked to ‘Love Bug’ Talks About his License to Heck’, viewed on 1st April 2020 < https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/21/business/a-filipino-linked-to-love-bug-talks-about-his-license-to-hack.html>

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