A Brief History: Where did the name come from?
I am not really sure how the name came up. I do
remember that with the Code Red II Outbreak in July of 2001 I was having a discussion with other Symantec employees and the
name just stuck. We were discussing how Code Red II was a blending of Worm and a Virus. Coupled with the fact that the OS
was left wide open for remote access, this was definitely different and a serious new type of threat. I began calling it a
Blended Threat. Everyone I talked with liked the term. It made sense, at least to me anyway. This was a new type of threat
and the major news organizations were treating Code Red II like a mass mailing worm. As a result I thought we should try to
capitalize on this new threat and create a marketing event around it. Naturally
since it was my idea, everyone suggested I drive the event. We first used the term Blended Threats publicly on August 16th
2001. The web cast I created and performed was called “Code Red: the real
threat and how to combat it."
For a little while, even after the webcast,
we had abandoned the term and were using integrated threats. However I countered that Blended Threats required integrated
solutions. Whether or not this had any effect on the marketing team I am not sure but it seemed to work and we went back
to using Blended Threats.
Below are some of the definitions we can up with before finalizing
it.
· A security attack
or threat that uses multiple methods and techniques to propagate and attack thus requiring multiple means of protection to
neutralize.
- A security attack or threat that uses multiple methods
and techniques to propagate.
- A security attack (real or potential) that uses multiple exploitation techniques
to cause harm to information systems and which is best defeated through security-in-depth countermeasures
- A security attack or threat that uses multiple methods and techniques to propagate.
____________________________________________________________
