The Two-Minute Virus.(computer viruses)(Interview)

When the next killer computer virus strikes, who are you going to call? Most probably ponytailed Mikko Hypponen, a Finnish virus hunter with the Helsinki- based firm F-Secure. He and his team, who track and crack several new hacker codes each day, were instrumental in diffusing last summer's omnipresent So Big virus. He spoke last week with NEWSWEEK's Rana Foroohar about the tech dangers that lie ahead.

What new threats do you see in 2004?

I think we'll see even faster viruses--ones that can infect every known computer address in two or three minutes instead of 15. Also, we haven't seen a really destructive virus in a while--the ones being created a few years ago used to do things like overwrite your entire hard drive. If Blaster or So Big had done that, it would have been a disaster. We're also seeing some changes in where viruses come from. The U.S. is declining as a point of origin. After 9/11, I think some American virus writers either stopped or went underground, fearful of what authorities might do if they found them. On the other hand, China is one of the strongest growing sources of new viruses.

How will the rise of the wireless Internet affect security?

So far, we've only seen killer SMS [short message service] that can crash a phone. I can imagine scenarios in which profit-seeking hackers take control of networks of phones and use them to make calls to 900 numbers. You could also record private phone calls and play them back over the Internet on streaming audio. Or, you could turn on a phone's recorder and use it to tape everything someone is saying, all the time.

How has the computer-virus landscape changed?

The term "virus" was coined in 1983, and the first outbreaks were around 1986, 1987. Back then, viruses were transmitted via floppy disks. They required humans to actually carry them from one computer to another. Then, in the mid-1990s, people began sending documents via e-mail attachments. We started seeing macro viruses that spread over networks, and those ...