Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: VIRUS ATTACK UNDER AWAY



Before being unduly alarmist, please not that plain text file attachments,
pictures, audio files, and movies are safe. Executable images, batch files,
and scripts may not be safe. Competent virus scanners should be able to
catch this. Anyone who uses Outlook can download a patch that completely
blocks all types of possibly unsafe files.

My ISP (for $2/month) will scan all messages before my machine attempts to
get them and they are quarantined on the ISP's machine. I get a notice
about this and can then delete them remotely or leave them to automatically
expire. In addition being a belt and suspenders man I have blocked all
attachments which could be unsafe and use a different brand of virus scanner
than my ISP. Along with a firewall and a sandbox I have fortified my
machine as much as possible. Anyone who is interested in my recommendations
and links to low cost solutions can go to
http://www.hal-pc.org/~clement/security.html . However no solutions can
substitute for operator vigilance. One more solution which is possible on
the newer systems is to have a separate manager account from your user
account. The user account that you use to read E-mail can then be safely
isolated from the system and can not destroy the system. This is possible
in Windows XP, 2000, Linux and presumable the newer Linux based MacOS.

I guess this means many of us must forgoe the more titillating unrequested
messages.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


List Members.
There is a virus attack under way. Our computer has been
under assault
from the virus W32.Klez.H@mm. We have been successful is avoiding
infection
by deleting all emails with attachments. Repeated virus scans on
our machine
have been negative. The reason for this post is that this virus
CAN MIMIC ANY
EMAIL ADDRESS AND ANY SUBJECT HEADING. This virus destroys the operating
system when the machine is rebooted after infection. If you
become infected
you can avoid damage by quarantining before you shut down the machine. You
can then delete this virus manually. Beside using existing
subject headers it
uses, Please try again, garden of Eden, so cool a flash, questionnaire,
meeting notice, spice girls VS playboy and many others but you
get the idea.

Bob Zannelli