[NTLUG:Discuss] What is love?

[Gregory A. Edwards]

Matt Moore wrote:
> 
> LinuxGrl wrote:
> > The virus then starts affecting data files. Files associated with Web
> > development, including ".js" and ".css" files, will be overwritten with a
> > file in the VisualBasic programming language. The original file is deleted.
> > It also goes after multimedia files, affecting JPEGs and MP3s. Again, it
> > deletes the original file and overwrites it with a VisualBasic file with a
> > similar name.
> 
> And, the worst part about this..this aspect made ANY OS vulnerable to it.
> My workplace got hit hard with this yesterday. This worm goes through your
> system using your drives as a checklist-meaning if you have any mapped
> drives on your system it will go through them as well. We have many


> 
> I have a feeling a lot of people are learning this the hard way after
> yesterday-it's unfortunate but hopefully they will be better prepared next
> time.
> 
> -Matt Moore

You know what I think is the really sad part of this.  If the creators
of the "inovative/visionary" program that was used to invite the
worm/virus into the systems had done a decient job of engineering that
OS and its tools this could of never happened.  I guess this is an
example of inovation in action.  I also noticed that NOBODY in the media
is talking about the inherant design of the OS and the mail tool makes
this kind of worm/virus unstoppable until after the fact.

The design of Outlook and Windows is as much to blame as the writer of
the worm/virus.  This was not the work of a pro that really knew what
they were doing.  The press is saying this is the work of an average
skill level person but from what I've heard a 1st year programming
student could have done it.  I haven't read the code, since it just
doesn't seem to be worth my time, but others that aren't in front of the
cameras have.

If this were an attack against a VAX/VMS or Unix (#include flavors.h)
system the e-mail backbone and the user that opened the attachment could
have been affected but not an entire company.  Instead of 100% of the
JPEGS in a company maybe 10% would have been lost.  There is a lot to be
said for ownership being built into the filesystem.

-- 
Greg Edwards
New Age Software, Inc.
http://www.nas-inet.com