Information Warfare: January 5, 2003

Archives

India and Pakistan have been arguing, and fighting, over who should own Kashmir for over fifty years. Now the conflict has spread to the Internet in a big way. Last June, a new virus began showing up in Kuwait. Called the Yaha virus, it is similar to the Klez virus that is still bouncing around the Internet. Yaha, which is now the second (right behind Klez) virus on the net, also launches DDOS attacks on Indian or Pakistani web sites (depending on who launched a particular version of Yaha.) This virus has become a popular weapon in the cyberwar between patriotic Pakistani and Indian hackers battling over who should own Kashmir. Like Klez, Yaha has it's biggest impact on home users, government offices and small businesses. Larger companies have installed defenses. Yaha, like Klez, sends itself to everyone on your Outlook email list. It also makes a web page, partial to it's cause, your home page and disables some anti-virus programs you might have on your system. Cleaning up Yaha is time consuming, but the damage is related to pushing a political position, not wiping out files on your system. 

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close