Don Walters
From:
Saskatchewan Canada
|
Posted 10 Feb 2004 7:43 am |
|
There have been several comments in this part of the Forum saying ".. thank goodness for Norton AV ... ", etc. This posting isn't about criticising Norton or any other AV vendor. It's about being aware of how you may want to be careful even with an AV checker running. I use Norton. Here's my tale:
I confess to distributing some of the MyDoom stuff, for about 8 seconds, I estimate. On the day MyDoom broke, I got a few suspicious looking e-mails, but no message from Norton that there was any infection. So, since I assumed the attachment was clean, I saved it to a folder, then clicked on it to see what it looked like ... I think the one I opened was disguised as a screen saver ... and Wham! It started sending e-mails. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to unplug the ethernet cable from my computer which stopped it after less than 10 seconds. Thank goodness I have 2 computers in my home office. I was able to follow the developing story and download the fixes as they became available, without reconnecting my infected machine to the outside world.
Moral of the story: Even the best AV systems cannot not catch an infection in its very earliest arrival on the scene. Someone has to be infected before the AV people can react, work up fixes etc.
I should have known better. I was surprised that an unknown virus would hit here so quickly. Of course, physical location means very little in cyberspace. Still, major centres are usually targeted first. My location can't be considered a major population region, even in Canadian terms.
So ... be cautious, even with an AV on the job. As Pres. Reagan once said, "trust, but verify"
As b0b and others have said many times on here: Don't open any attachments that you weren't expecting.
[This message was edited by Don Walters on 10 February 2004 at 07:44 AM.] |
|
