Re: [cobalt-users] New email worm / virus.

["Robert G. Fisher" <rfisher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, May 05, 2000 at 07:11:49PM +0100, Dom Latter wrote:
> The company that bombarded us with the "love bug" have mimesweeper 
> installed.  The trouble with that is that people then believe that
> all mail they receive has been checked (true) and is therefore safe
> (false).

I understand that -- but just because a method doesn't catch every
possible instance doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.  I'm less 
worried about the obvious trojans such as 'love bug' worm than
about more insidious things such as word macro viruses and so
forth.  It's not that uncommon for someone to attach a word or
rtf document in e-mail -- and I know I had blindly trusted my
system until an e-mail I sent bounced from a smtp box that
detected a macro virus in my word documents.

Educating users to run AV software on their systems and to not
open every attachment they see is a big part of the solutions;
however, the SysAdmin should try to limit the flow of purely 
harmful things through their system through methods such as
virus scans, ignoring/blocking of igmp-redirects and directed
broadcasts on gateway routers...

-- 
Robert G. Fisher		     NEOCOM Microspecialists Inc. 
System Administrator/Programmer      (540) 666-9533 x 116