TECHTALK Messages for 2001: Re: viruses

Re: viruses

From: Bruce Speyer

bruce.speyer@medispecialty.com

Thu, 03 May 2001 17:19:54 -0500

Dr. Fazeel gives good advice below. Be especially careful of opening files with extensions EXE (executable), CMD and BAT and COM (commands), JS and JSE (javascript), VBS and VBE (visual basic script), PIF (Program InFormation file, a type of file that holds information about how Windows should run a non-Windows application - how worms are often delivered) and SCR (Windows Screen Saver). A DOC, XLS or even PPT file can contain MSWord macros which can mess up your other word files but these days the macro capability is defaulted off in many installations which will disable these common viruses.

As noted by Allen Worrall the virus from today was not actually delivered by OBGYN.net. We run extensive filtering on the forums and in fact it is difficult even to get a posting like this about viruses through without triggering it.

What is happening is that somebody with an infected computer receives an email which may just happen to have been sent through a forum like Ultrasound and then their computer without their knowledge is *automatically* responding to the sender with the virus. If they happen to respond to the forum itself it is caught and you never see it.

There is no escaping viruses and worms if you use email. Besides just thinking and being careful about what attachments you open the full proof answer is to have a virus scan program on your computer and most importantly keep the virus definitions up to date. We had a case today where one of the OBGYN.net staff had a virus because their virus scan definitions were last updated two months ago and the virus they caught was created just weeks ago. Once they updated their virus definitions the virus scan program popped up a warning and we were able to clean up the PC.

The two most common virus programs are Mcafee and Norton. We use both and they work fine. For more information see http://www.mcafee.com and http://www.norton.com Both programs have a semi-automatic update virus definition capability built into them.

Hope this helps Bruce

>Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 01:17:23 +0500
>From: Dr Fazeel uz Zaman <fazeel@atd.hazara.net.pk>
>Subject: [Fwd: Advice...Re: [medicalimaging] Anatoli, you have a virus]
>
>Dear friends,
>1-Do not open any attached file.........except JPEG format.
>2-If you send any other file, please introduce that file in your
>covering letter, so that we feel safe and open it..
>3-We all should now INSERT picture/image in the body of email, instead
>of attaching it.
>4-Particularly don't open any file with extensions EXE, PIF, BAT, or
>COM. Beware of ...DOC. exe and ....JPEG. exe or ....DOC. pif files.
>I didn't open any of the recent attached files sent by VIRUS in the
>COMPUTER of Anatoli. These seem to be viscious as message subject
>remains intact and it seems a relevant reply is being given.
>I hope this helps.................Fazeel
>
>Allen Worrall wrote:
>
> > Shlomo, yes, evidently the virus only attaches itself to unread email
>
> > and then sends that same message again. So if Anatoli read an email
> > before the virus had a chance to get into it, that email would not be
> > infected and would not be resent. So emails that Anatoli sends himself
>
> > are clean, whereas those that he does not know his computer is sending
>
> > are infected. Something like that. Allen

-- Bruce Speyer, CTO Home of OTOHNS.net http://www.otohns.net MediSpecialty.com A Physician Directed Network +001 512-835-1111 ext 227 and OBGYN.net http://www.obgyn.net 512-835-6112 fax, 512-632-3455 cell The Universe of Women's Health EMAIL: bruce.speyer@medispecialty.com

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