Slashdot Mirror
McAfee Manufactures Virus Threat
The latest "news" to come out of the AV industry is New Virus Infects Picture Files. McAfee put up their description and made sure to issue a wide-spread press release to stir up some interest. McAfee's spokesdrone fans the flames:
- "Potentially no file type could be safe."
That evolution should make computer users think twice about sending pictures or any other media over the Internet, Gullotto said.
"Going forward, we may have to rethink about distributing JPGs."
Now, if you know much about computing, you may be a little suspicious of this. JPEGs are compressed image files that only contain data representing an image to be displayed, not code to be executed. A modification of that data might screw up the picture of your cat dangling from the edge of the kitchen table you like so much, but it won't turn the image into a potential virus transmitter, because the programs that display JPEGs don't read them with an eye toward executing the code. An image file is just data to be displayed. The line between "data" and "code" is a little bit fuzzy - often particular characters or a particular file can be both data and code, depending on the context of how other code handles it. Or a particular file can include both data and code separately, like a Microsoft Word file that includes data (your text) and code (some macro designed to be executed by Word when the document is opened).
But for JPEGs there's a well-designed standard, and it doesn't include executing code of any sort. If a JPEG-handling program doesn't like the data it sees, it should just stop trying to display the image, not decide to start executing code from the image. JPEGs are mostly harmless.
McAfee's claim of a virus spread through JPEGs requires one essential element: you have to have already been infected by ANOTHER virus transmitted by some actual executable code. What it comes down to is:
Once you're infected with a virus, the virus can set you up to be infected by other viruses.
No shit, Sherlock. Once you have enemy code running on your system, you're toast. A virus could alter Microsoft Word so that opening any Word document at all would erase every file on your hard drive, making every single Word document in existence a deadly threat -- to you, and to you alone. But this isn't a new virus threat of any sort. It isn't a breakthrough. It's a consequence of being infected, not a new method of being infected.
Two weeks ago, we ran a story about a cross-platform virus. Like this one, it didn't really exist in the wild. Like this one, it was mainly a PR ploy (by Symantec, in that case). But we thought it had at least some minimal technical interest as a bit of code that would run under Windows or Linux.
McAfee and Symantec (and all the other AV vendors out there) are waging a PR war to "discover" ever more news-worthy viruses to defend against. To get maximum coverage, your new virus needs to do something unique or different -- make your computer turn green, or infect something previously uninfectable, or whatever it might be. Compare this to Klez, a very basic virus similar in most ways to viruses that have gone before, which is still out there looting and pillaging tens of thousands of computers every day, but isn't ideal for AV vendors because they don't have a monopoly on the cure.
The press is catching on, to some tiny extent at least, that most virus alerts are fictitious and just designed to drum up business for the vendors. But it's far easier to repurpose a vendor's press release and call it a story than to dig into real threats that exist on the Internet, and the causes of those threats. Today, like last year and the year before and five years ago, there are major email-borne virus threats out there. (There are still old-school viruses out there too, transmitted by sneaker-net or by downloading suspicious software, but email is clearly the way to go for the discriminating virus creator.) All the real email virus threats share a few distinguishing characteristics:
- They only affect Microsoft Windows. If you aren't running Windows, you are safe.
- They're usually transmitted by email. If you know enough on your own, or you've had a half-hour class in "Email 101", you should be able to avoid executing random files received by email.
- They auto-execute in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. Microsoft has finally made some progress, after many years, in reducing the vulnerability of their flagship email programs. So if you have a recent or fully-updated version of these programs, you may not be as vulnerable as people running older versions. Nevertheless, this was (and still is, since so many people don't have recent or fully-updated versions) a primary vector.
And that's really it. If you don't run Windows, you're safe. If you have basic email skills, you're safe. If you don't run Outlook, you're safe. That's the story of modern viruses, and fortunately or un-, it's a pretty boring one.
McAfee, and Symantec, and everyone else involved in the anti-virus FUD business: lay off. I mean that literally, as in, "Lay off the people you employ for the purpose of drumming up new virus threats." Lay off the public relations people you employ to say things like, "We may have to rethink about distributing JPGs." Lay off the BS. There's a real market for your product, people who (for whatever reason) are using Windows and/or Outlook, and haven't received the half-hour training course necessary to avoid viruses. You can market to them based on your fast responses to real virus threats - you don't need to manufacture any more.
Shows what you know. You Linux lusers don't even have Microsoft ActiveJPEG Technology yet?!?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I would rather throw out Windows out of the computer...
Check out this spam email a bunch of people in my office got yesterday:
s ion: 1.0
-=-=-=-=-
Return-Path: postmaster@salisbury.net
Received: from salisbury.net (12.152.4.9) by myoffice.com with ESMTP (Eudora
Internet Mail Server 3.0.3); Wed, 12 Jun 2002 23:08:21 -0400
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 23:09:46 -0400
Message-Id: 200206122309.AA2564817116@salisbury.net
Mime-Ver
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
From: "postmaster " postmaster@salisbury.net
Reply-To: postmaster@salisbury.net
To: people in my office
Subject: WARNING: YOU WERE SENT A VIRUS
X-Mailer:
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
On 06/12/2002 at 23:09:45 Our special virus software on our servers at salisbury.net
reported that your were sent an Email Virus containing the Unknown Virus in the Unknown File attachment.
The subject of the E-mail was "L Specifies the length". The E-mail containing the virus from kbndl@salisbury.net has been quarantined on our servers to prevent further damage. The virus never made it to your mailbox. (emphasis mine)
Internet Of Salisbury, Inc. provides this service free to our customers while other providers charge
a monthly fee. Though this software should catch up to 99 percent of viruses, a new virus could make it in.
If you are not running Anti-Virus software you should ASAP!
Please Contact N-Techsolutions @ 704-638-2422 or visit their website at:
http://www.n-techsolutions.com Look for the Norton Anti Virus Special! (emphasis mine)
Please do not call Internet Of Salisbury, Inc.
-=-=-=-=-
Not that there was ever any question about sleazy spammers being out there, but this one takes the cake.
BS. Lusers are called lusers for a reason. I'm not talking about every Windows user here, but all it takes is one to be a problem.
With some people, You can tell them to their face "Do not open emails from people you do not know", print it out in 124 point font banners hung over their cubicles, show them pict-o-grams of evil viruses destroying their data, bring Special Guest Star Burt Lancaster to reinforce the point, and drop by daily with the message written in icing on delicious chocolate cake. The minute you turn your back, they're off checking out the cool new Shakira screen saver someone sent them. The point is, it's still a problem, and it's not a problem you can completely solve with "30 minute training courses".
And please don't lay this all on Windows and Outlook either. Yes, there are some questionable design decisions in these programs. But if the whole world was running Linux or something similar, people would be causing problems running everything as root, or whatever other stupid things you can do to get yourself in trouble.
Do McAfee and Symantec sometimes go overboard with their warnings to sell more copies of their software? Of course they do. What company doesn't? Or did you think it was absolutely, positively necessary to see your doctor about Prilosec?
Ever hear of calligraphy? Its a process of hiding data into pictures, and lots of it.
Calligraphy? I thought it involved writing fancy-shmancy letters with a special pen or brush.
Do you mean, perhaps, "steganography"?
Also, Your list of things not to do to catch a virus reminds me like avoiding pregnancy via the 'pull out' method. Sure it might improve your chances, but it won't 'protect' you in any real sense.
I think this is a bad analogy. His list reminds me of avoiding pregnancy via the "if it looks like a vagina, don't put your penis in it" method, which is significantly more effective.
Synergy is your friend