Security experts, however, were mixed when it came to labeling .zip as a threat that should be banned from business.
"To deal with this many worms, companies may need to block more file extensions," said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of McAfee's AVERT virus research team. He recommended blocking .pif attachments, for instance -- 7 of the week's 16 worms may use that extension -- "but I think .zip is still relatively safe."
Chris Belthoff, a senior security analyst with anti-virus firm Sophos, strongly disagreed. "Some of these worms are taking an interesting new tactic; they're deliberately trying to get by gateway scanning by password-protecting the .zip file attachments. Zip files are not to be trusted, period," he said.
A third strategy that may limit exposure is to update anti-virus software definitions more frequently when multiple worms pop up in a 24-hour span.
This tactic, which Symantec's Huger said was already being used by most enterprises -- "For most of our commercial customers, decreased time between updates is already a best practice," he said -- plays best to the consumer crowd, which is notorious for neglecting virus updates.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
