Internet under attack! Um, maybe not

Someone’s gotta be pretty red-faced over at Symantec, which sent out an alert to its DeepSight subscribers about a potential threat to global Internet security. Symantec scored the threat a “4,” which is its highest rating and one it has never used before. An hour later, the company admitted it made a mistake. Not great for the service’s credibility, and probably a reason why many IT managers will hold off before reacting immediately to the next major alert. Of course, if the real Internet were really facing a level 4 threat, I somehow have this feeling we wouldn’t have to wait for Symantec to tell us.