Warning: Back Orifice threat this Saturday

Mathew Bevan, and ex-hacker who now works for UK-based Tiger Security says: "The security community really hasn't latched onto Back Orifice and the anti-virus measure won't be ready until the day after it's been released, so it could case some major mayhem."

The creators of Back Orifice promise to release the virus at 4pm EST this Saturday, to coincide with the highly publicised Def Con 7.0 security conference in Las Vegas.

Kevin Street, Technical Manager at Symantec Anti-Virus, also believes that companies should be cautious. "It is a legitimate threat, and people should be aware of it. But if a virus is going to do certain things it should be pretty easy to track. We have people working 24 hours all over the world and it took us about 43 minutes to come up with a countermeasure for Melissa."

Bevan still thinks Back Orifice is being underestimated. "I have word there will be some impressive improvements, things that people wont be ready for."