You are correct, McAfee doesn't catch everything but they are one of the best for
timely distributing virus signature updates. We have an employee here that almost on
a daily basis is pushing out dat files to users (Windows) desktops and to the servers.
Do you think most home users check for updates on a daily basis? Weekly?
Microsoft has fed this explosion of virus creation. Everyone should personally write
a letter to Bill thanking him. I know the PC virus scan companies are thanking him
every time a company signs a contract for a maintenance agreement. There was an
article on /. a couple days ago (March 27) going over the paradigm why viruses are so
successful against Windows versus Linux. It blushes with the basic concept of file
permissions. Windows is so lax that you are given basically the equivalent of a *nix
root account. Would you give a user that barely knows how to insert and remove a disk
for a floppy drive a root equivalent account? Viruses creators play on this. Then
you get a suite of Microsoft products that are integrated right into the OS, and you
have a virus breeding ground and a ripe target for the picking. How could any
delinquent pass up the opportunity to take advantage of the situation?
Lets move on to your main phobia of attachments. I attach a HTML page on the end of
this message to redirect your Outlook (which has IE integrated right into it) to a web
page I have setup on one of the many free web hosting services out there. Maybe a
little hostile ActiveX to load a customized version of BO2K on your Windows machine.
But wait, it even gets better. I don't even bother with the html attachment, I stick
the calls for the ActiveX right in the body of the message. Since Microsoft has been
kind enough to integrate a web browser right into their OS, Outlook will launch the
ActiveX by default. Now, be sure to thank Bill for this innovative feature in that
letter you send him.
Computer security is not about having an air tight system. Computer security is about
managing risk. How one person manages risk may be totally different from how another
person does. For example: what is more important? Protecting the vault in the bank,
or protecting the whole town? Do you back up your whole system to tape, CD, whatever,
or do you just back up the data you create? You need to come to some conclusions to
what level of risk is acceptable for you. You also need to weigh the positive and
negative of that decision. Keep in mind that a system that is so secure that it
hinders the users productivity is least apt to be used and followed. It is highly
unlikely that people will stop sending e-mail attachments to satisfy your personal
security concerns.
My suggestion is to drop Outlook and go for a Windows e-mail reader that is not
integrated into the OS. There are several free products out there that are excellent.
I have used Forte Agent in the past and liked the integration of e-mail and Usenet
reader in one. My co-worker and significant other both like Endora's products
(coincidentally, they both like using pine in the *nix world). Endora has a similar
feel to Forte's Agent but no Usenet features. I have heard good things about Pegasus.
Big pluses are ease of integrating PGP into each of these products.
Why don't people still send e-mails in the clear? Quite simple the times 'd are a
changing. Lets take a real world example. If you are in the Government contract
business than you might be familiar with some of the requirement for submitting
proposals. One of those new requirements would be the migration from accepting
production printed proposals to electronic format. That could mean submitting a
proposal on a ZIP disk, CD ROM, to e-mail. I don't know about you but I don't
recommend sending proprietary company information in the clear through e-mail.
Proposals generally comprise multiple files. That means those dreaded attachments.
Then you have people that have adopt the modern Government requirement to their
everyday use. After all, if the USA government is requiring it then it must be a
standard, right?
David A. Nixon
Network Security Engineer
ManTech International Corp. www.ManTech.com
>>> "Southwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 04/05/00 06:05PM >>>
David Nixon said:
> That being said (typed), why are you not using an automated e-mail virus
scanner?
David S Comments:
I am - but having, I am sad to say, in my working life long experience (now
just over 40 years) in IT learnt that the crazy guys that like to
write/distribute virus`s are currently real keen to find ways of getting
round virus protection systems - including McAfee --the lastest version of
which which I run on my machine. The guys that do this are real genius`s at
what they do and someone somewhere will no doubt find a way.. if we get
complacent then we will suffer the consequencies..
Having been caught out once myself - true about five years ago, with a virus
attached to an email- which was not detected by a virus detector - I am left
believing that a gram of prevention is worth a ton of cure..
Secondly why use an attachment when it is just as easy to paste text
directly into your email? .. I mean attachment are fine for subsidiary
documents but surely unnecessary for the main message body?
Thirdly why discourtesy force people to have to open attachments when the
standard method (and always has been since uucp days) has been to send
emails in the clear?
Anyway that is my view on the matter but I do not want the discussion to be
blown up out of all proportion..it is not that significant - I made a
request - if the one or two odd balls that post exclusively using
attachments want to carry on doing so - it is their choice - likewise it is
my choice to bin emails that comprise only attachments..
Basically noone should rely on virus protection programs - by definition
they can only deal with known viruses and or known virus techniques..
david S.
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