|
PureBytes Links
Trading Reference Links
|
At 05:31 PM 5/12/99 -0500, Adam Hefner wrote:
>> All -- I notice that the above says: "will check and clean any infected
>> e-mail attachments when you open them." My understanding is that with the
>> HAPPY99.EXE virus (and I would assume many others as well), "when you open
>> (it)" is already way too late.
>>
>
>Hi Chuck,
> Reading the e-mail will NOT infect your computer, If your virus information
>is
>up-to-date and you try to open the infected file (usually an .exe, .com,
>.bat, ect..)
>with your AV "Real Time Protection" on the AV will halt the exucution of the
>infeted file and will prevent. So there shouldn't be any probelm if your
>using
>a good AV.
Adam -- Thanks for the note. I do understand that reading the e-mail won't
cause any problem -- that comes when you "execute" the attachment, unless
you're protected with some AV. My Norton kicked in without my trying to
"execute" -- it seems as though it simply recognized HAPPY as it went by in
download, so to speak. As I said in my post, I got a big, DOS-like
full-screen warning immediately after HAPPY came in. After I agreed to
delete it, Norton went back off and further e-mail download resumed. As far
as I'm concerned, that's how it ought to work -- at least, I can't think of
any improvement I could make to the idea of viruses being recognized on the
fly.
Guy Tann sent me a note that his Norton AV, presumably the same version,
same updates, "never did anything" on arrival of HAPPY from the list, so
I'm going to see if I have some settings I can report to him.
Too bad some folks just can't resist making trouble.
Best regards --
Chuck
|