Virus doctors to the rescue
In fact, on the eve of the attack, TrendLabs, Trend Micro's 24-hour virus lab in the Philippines, began receiving virus reports from dozens of customers around the world. Its "virus doctors," who work in three shifts around the clock, identified the virus pattern within 45 minutes, compared it with other blacklisted viruses, and tested it to determine whether it was a new or an old type of virus.
Their analysis showed that it was indeed a new virus type, with a destructive potential beyond anything anyone had imagined possible. A red alert was issued throughout the lab, triggering a frantic race among more than 400 staff members, with one team working on a solution, another busy testing a variety of computer platforms, and a third answering thousands of requests for help from affected customers around the world.
Within a few hours, Trend Micro's head office in Taipei had a good grasp of the virus' origin and development. Jonny Wu, an assistant manager in the sales department, immediately alerted the company's senior managers, who called a meeting to discuss the problem. The virus turned out to be a network worm that targeted Microsoft products, causing computers to shut down and reboot after a one-minute countdown sequence. Engineers had to name the virus as quickly as possible to help customers identify the threat.
In fact, by the time the worm began wreaking havoc, the Trend Micro head office had already obtained an internationally approved English name, Sasser, after the process it attacked. But in Taiwan, a meaningful Chinese name had to be found that would strike a chord with local consumers and, more importantly, that could be used subsequently when combating the worm.
Because the Sasser outbreak occurred shortly after the March 19 shooting incident on the eve of Taiwan's presidential election, when the whole country was looking for the shooter, Trend Micro engineers hit upon the name shashou (hitman). They immediately issued a media alert and instructions to protect against the worm.
Trend Micro's "go-red" advertisement strategy is based on the game of Go. The color red represents security and competitive power--key principles in Go. The "go-red" concept has received an enthusiastic response and a variety of industry awards around the world.