Finjan confirms Y2K virus onslaught

January 1 could be the launch day for a major virus epidemic according to President and CEO of Finjan Anti-Virus, Bill Lyons.

Lyons last week told ZDNet that warnings about the danger of virus attacks designed to coincide with the Y2K bug have by no means been exaggerated. He considers the danger of a millennium virus outbreak to be almost greater than the Y2K bug itself.

"Everybody who has looked into it and tried to tackle the area seems to think there's going to be an onslaught," he said. "With everybody focusing on the Y2K count, I think some people are going to think 'hey, this is a great time for me to get some exposure.'"

Lyons cautioned companies not to drop their guard against infected e-greetings and other malicious attacks this New Year as they focus on Y2K issues. "We are predicting an explosion of these this year and when you have one harmless executable you can quite easily merge that with a malicious executable." This comes just two days after the FBI and other law enforcement agencies warned of virus epidemics over the millennium period.

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