How Quickly The Worm Turns: Attackers Are Poised To Pounce; Flaws Exploited Faster: Report.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: DONNA HOWELL

Given the worms of August, which did $2 billion in damage, it's clear that online attackers have kept busy thinking up dirty deeds lately.

Most troubling, perhaps, is a dangerous trend in their methods: speed. A report slated to be released Wednesday by computer security firm Symantec Corp. notes less and less time between the discovery of software flaws and their exploitation by hackers and virus writers.

Flaws, or vulnerabilities, show up all the time in software. They're doors through which hackers, worms and viruses enter computers.

Software makers try to issue downloadable software patches as quickly as possible to fix such flaws. Computer users are supposed to install the patches right away, but many fail to do so.

As a result, the sooner an attacker launches an assault based on a new software flaw, the more computers he or she can expect to infect. Break-ins get tougher to prevent the faster a culprit acts.

"The window to react and respond has significantly shrunk," said Art Wong, a vice president at Cupertino, Calif.-based anti-virus software maker Symantec. "What used to (average) over six months before an attack launched has gone down to less than a month."