Bill Frank wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: virus
>
> >I must repeat what Aaron said - this is not a virus - it is a worm.  It
> does
> >no
> >damage to you computer if you were unfortunate enough to run the program.
> >All it does is spread itself to others from those who are gullible enough
> to
> >run
> >an executable file received via email.
 
Yes, it is a worm, but in the context of the hoax viruses, it forces
people to respond in ways that waste a lot of time and bandwidth
globally -- to that degree it does what viruses are intended to do. It
is not just the gullible, in situations where exe files and other
attachments are routinely sent, then if a staff member is distracted
and trusts the sender, and where files are expected to arrive from
that source, then these can be initiated. One of my staff members
routinely received "joke" executables from a friend. I always try to
stop this when I see it, but I try not make it a humorless environment
nonetheless! A good friend of mine who is a web guru in the UK
sometimes writes a program that is a multi-media greeting card. If I
saw the attachment on one of his emails I would expect it to be one of
these also. The title of the worm is a deliberate attempt to imitate
such greeting pgms. As responsible people it is our job to see that
this is not proliferated. Also if the worm ends up on a network, then
it will be sent without knowledge and spread similarly to other
networks.
 
Clean it of the systems properly, and check other machines on your
networks so we can get back to business and fun as usual. I don't want
to see this showing up on every other email that we get. It came to us
once from Conch-l and a couple of days ago it was sent from an
engineering firm that is a client of ours. Now we are going to have to
tell them how to eliminate it from their network as well.
 
Regards,
 
John Hooker
--
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