Re: [WinMac] Virus alert

Michael H. Martel(martelm[at]quark.vsc.edu)
Tue, 21 Sep 1999 07:29:46 -0400

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> you will learn there that there is NO SUCH THING as an email that
> infects your computer as soon as you open it. You are only infected
> when you open *email attachments* that contain viruses.

I'm not going to disagree with you because for years I've said the same
thing as you!

Saturday night my wife was using the PC we've got, to check her email. She
uses Outlook Express 5 since that's what she uses at her office. She
received a message from a friend. The minute she clicked on the message,
just clicked on it, not opened it, the computer went beserk. It started
beeping and opeing windows with text in them etc. It took me 15 minutes to
get the machine back to a normal useable state.

Here's what happened. Outlook Express 5 (possibly other versions) defaults
to a screen layout like this :

        Folder List | Message List
        --------------+---------------------------------------
        Contacts List | Message Preview

When a message is selected in the list, it is instantly previewed down
below. So you don't even need to double click the message to open it.

Now since MS wants Outlook to support HTML,they used the same engine as IE,
and that includes JScript. SO if a message comes in that contains embedded
JScript, it is executed immediately! That's what happened to my wife. The
message contained embedded JScript to make the computer beep and start
opening windows.

I'm trying to track down a reference that tells me what JScript is capeable
of. If I had to guess, I'd bet that it could delete files at the very
least.

So we're getting closer to the Good Times Virus becoming a reality!

Don't we just love AutoMagic stuff ?

Cheers!

Michael

-- 

  -------------------------------+--------------------------------
  Michael H. Martel              | Vermont State Colleges        
  mailto:martelm@quark.vsc.edu   | Technical Support Specialist
  http://probe.vsc.edu/~michael  | PH:802-241-2535 FX:802-241-3363



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