| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 2605.1 | Ammendment | NZOV01::MCKENZIE | Diehard the hunter | Sun May 28 1989 17:45 | 12 |
| whoops - I said in .0
the virus was killed provided the disk was not copy protected...
This of course should have been....]
the virus was killed provided the disk was not WRITE protected...
Sorry
Phil
|
| 2605.2 | My suggestion: Don't buy a virus protector | EUCLID::OWEN | Cthulhu called... | Tue May 30 1989 08:10 | 8 |
| I don't think I could ever BUY a virus protector simply because
there are new virus' comming out constantly. As long as VirusX
can keep up, I don't see much need to buy one. (other than the data
base you mentioned)
Anyone else feel the same way?
Steve O
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| 2605.3 | ? | EMC2::PELLATT | The Karmic Surfer | Tue May 30 1989 08:53 | 7 |
| But won't VIRUS KILLER detect ALL viruses ( virii ?? ) when it checks
the boot block or are there other ways of infecting yourself ?
Otherwise I'd agree that regular updates of VirusX is likely all you
need ( pity I haven't got a copy yet (8^( ).
Dave
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| 2605.4 | double '?' | EUCLID::OWEN | Cthulhu called... | Tue May 30 1989 13:30 | 7 |
| Virus writers are getting more creative. For every virus-killer
that comes out, there is a virus written that is made to fool the
viurs-killer.
I'm really not completely sure which way is the best though...
Steve O
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| 2605.5 | Help good programmers | MQOFS::DESROSIERS | Lets procrastinate....tomorrow | Tue May 30 1989 15:50 | 10 |
| Altough VIRUSX is puplic domain, and free, it must take an awfull
amount of time for Steve Tibbet (the author) to write it and UPDATE
it regularely. Why not send him a few bucks, his address is in
the doc files. He deserves the money a lot more than some insipid
software that MUST be bought sight unseen, at least you know this
one is usefull.
Jean
PS My check is in the mail.
|
| 2605.6 | Yup! | EUCLID::OWEN | Cthulhu called... | Tue May 30 1989 16:02 | 6 |
| re -.1
you're right. We should send him some money. If he had 5 cents
for every disk he's saved from virus' he'd be a rich man!
Steve O
|
| 2605.7 | Hmmmm... | NZOV01::MCKENZIE | Diehard the hunter | Tue May 30 1989 17:57 | 38 |
| I dont intend having to justify my purchase - I feel I got a reasonable
deal.......but I'd like to balance this up a little
There are a couple of things about viruses (at least at my level of
understanding) that will remain the same:
o Sickos/Social rejects will always write viruses
o Viruses need to be implanted on an area on disk
that is forcefully checked by the system at every
boot - aka: boot block
I have used about 10 different virus killers - mostly public domain
(although VirusX was not among them) and none of them did more than
attempt to remedy the existing problem with a single strain of a
certain type of virus. Some Public domain Virus
killers even spread their own viruses after being stuffed around
with by the nasty little virus-writing scumbags before distribution.
Hence I have not a lot of faith in my present sources (however
limited) of public domain software PERIOD. Most virus killers also are
generally only effective against one type of virus. By building a
dbase as every new nasty comes along, so will the updates to kill it.
Plus who knows. In the process of building a dbase some genius
somewhere may discover a new strain floating around a little sooner
than normal ... might save some novice like me a little frustration.
I have heard plenty of good things about VirusX but have never seen
a copy of it down this neck of the woods. Since no one
in this country deals public domain except the various user groups.
And since much of their software is rather dubious .... Hmmmmmm
Perhaps the title of this note was a little mis-leading
It will be changed.....
Phil
|
| 2605.8 | Boot-block checkers may not be enough | TEACH::ART | Think the UNTHINKABLE | Tue May 30 1989 22:47 | 13 |
| re .-1
Sad to say, viruses do NOT need to live in the boot-block
on the Amiga. Another wonderful way to infect a system would
be to hide the virus in an extra hunk of an executable program.
When the program was run on a new machine, it would look in
some likely directory (like C:), and add copies of the same
extra hunk to a few executables there; every time one of the
infected programs were run, the virus could have its way you.
Other than constantly checking the size of all your executables,
there's no easy way to detect or correct this kind of virus...
-Art
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| 2605.9 | More to it than appears on the surface | RLAV::LITTLE | Todd Little, NYA SWS, 323-4475 | Wed May 31 1989 00:10 | 8 |
| Boot block checking is definitely not enough. Nor is checking the
length of an executable. It certainly would be possible to stuff a
virus in some well known executable like DIR by replacing code that
implements seldom used features with the virus code. A better
executable would be one that is invoked by most if not all
startup-sequence scripts.
-tl
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| 2605.10 | Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here | TEACH::ART | Think the UNTHINKABLE | Thu Jun 01 1989 17:12 | 13 |
|
Yeah, unfortunately the real problem has to do with the
fundamental design of AmigaDOG itself: It has no notion
of privilege or ownership associated with any of the
objects in the OS. Any piece of code can touch any file,
anyone can access the trackdisk device.
Of course, trying to enforce protection on a machine that
doesn't have hardware memory protection is kind of silly...
Sigh.
-Art
|