NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Viruses
From: Geoff Kuenning
Date: 2004 Feb 1, 22:29 -0800
From: Geoff Kuenning
Date: 2004 Feb 1, 22:29 -0800
Like most of its brethren of the past year, the current "MyDoom/Novarg" worm (technically, it's not a virus) forges e-mail From: addresses. When you get an infected message, the one thing you can be sure of is that it did NOT come from the person listed in the From: line. So it's not at all clear that a list member was the guilty party. The very best defense against e-mail worms is to practice "attachment hygiene". That means your e-mail software should be configured so that it NEVER opens an attachment without your permission. No cute sounds when you mouse over a message, no little pictures popping up, nothing. You, the owner, should also never open unknown attachments. If you weren't expecting something from a correspondent, don't open it. (To be fair, the MyDoom/Novarg worm also spreads via Kazaa. I don't know enough about Kazaa to tell you how to defend against that part of the attack.) Note that Microsoft Outlook is one of the very worst offenders in spreading worms. If you use Outlook, you might wish to consider switching to a safer mail reader. At a minimum, make sure you have all the security updates, and be sure you turn off all the attachment features. (Sorry, I can't tell you how. I mistrust Outlook to the point where I won't even install it in a clean-room environment.) -- Geoff Kuenning geoff@cs.hmc.edu http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/ Windows XP is the "most reliable Windows ever," which is like saying that asparagus is "the most articulate vegetable ever." -- Dave Barry