Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/10/04

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Subject: RE: [Leica] OT: Virus stuff....
From: "Beddoe, Neil" <nbeddoe@lehman.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 13:35:13 +0100

It would take me about four hours to write a virus that would patiently
collect all your web passwords as you entered them, wait a descreet interval
before emailing them silently to a hotmail address and deleting copies of
the email from your sent items folder.  For good measure I could open a port
on your machine and make your hard drive browsable from the internet - with
a bit of extra work I could probably get this past your firewall.   After
another discreet interval it would delete itself causing no visible harm to
your system. NAV wouldn't catch it because it wouldn't have any definition
of it to work with.

What I couldn't do is make you run it in the first place.  You don't buy
insurance then not care about leaving your front door open.

Neil

- -----Original Message-----
From: D Khong [mailto:dkhong@pacific.net.sg]
Sent: 04 October 2002 12:51
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us; leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: Virus stuff....



>First Neil wrote:
>
><If you get
> > an attachment that you didn't expect from someone that you don't know,
> > delete it.  If it's from someone you do know, ask them what it is before
>you
> > open it.  Simple really and cheaper than anti-virus software.>

Then Mark Pope wrote:

>Fair point Neil, but I would NEVER, EVER skimp on AV software.  It's just
>too risky IMO.  So Norton AV costs up to £50.  There are others that are
>shareware or even freeware, so there is no real justification to not having
>AV software installed or a firewall for that matter.
>£50 is a bargain compared to the disruption and heartache that a nasty
virus
>that trashes your hard disk, records keystrokes, thereby picking up and
>transmitting  user Ids and passwords.

snip....

We pay for home insurance, life insurance, accident insurance, malpractice 
insurance and most time  we hardly get to use them (thank God for that). 
For the past one month alone, I have been bombarded by emails with all 
sorts of viruses and on EVERY occasion my Norton AV has defended my PC 
against them. I cannot forget that time some years back when my PC was hit 
by a virus which took me many man-hours and $$$ to clean up by a 
professional. Why stinge on $50 for peace of mind? My NAV updates itself 
every now and then and I can really feel completely safe and sleep well.

Dan K.


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