In a message dated 05/04/2000 2:31:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
LJones@s... writes:
<< I tend to be highly skeptical of virus alerts, since most of them claim
that a virus can be "caught" simply by opening an e-mail, which really can't
happen. This one, however, seems more credible, since it specifies that it
is the *attachment* that is infected. Good rule of thumb: don't open
*attachments* from anyone you don't know, and even if you *do* know the
sender, scan the attachments with an up-to-date virus checker before opening
them. Scary world, huh? Thanks for the heads-up! >>
My day job is doing computer support for a law firm. The I LOVE YOU
virus is definitely real. My law firm, along with organizations like the
British House of Commons and the Swiss government computer network, had to
shut down their e-mail server in response to this virus. It's a nasty one.
For this particular virus, you do have to open the attachment for the
virus to be loaded on your computer. However, as e-mail programs get more
sophisticated, the possibility is becoming more real that people will be able
to include a virus in the body of the e-mail itself. This newest class of
viruses, such as I LOVE YOU and the Melissa virus, are written in Visual
Basic, or VBA, which is a fairly simple programming language. More and more
standard software packages are being written to allow the use of VBA. For
example, versions of Microsoft Word beginning with Word 97 are able to use
VBA. Therefore, viruses can be included in Word 97 and Word 2000 documents.
Once e-mail programs are able to run VBA, e-mails will be able to carry
viruses as well.
If I remember correctly, Outlook 2000 is VBA enabled, but I'm not 100%
sure of that.
Running a good virus scanning program, such as McAfee or Norton Antivirus
is the best line of defense. However, you have to keep your list of virus
definitions up to date. In the case of the I LOVE YOU virus, however, it hit
so quickly that Norton Antivirus did not have it included in their list of
virus definitions. I just updated my virus definitions about an hour ago,
and it was still not on the list. With something like this, even running a
good antivirus program won't help you.
The moral of the story is to be very, very careful about opening e-mail
attachments. Can you tell it's been a really, really hairy day at the office?
Lee Morgan
Mezzo-soprano
|
|  |
