Visual Studio .Net: Now with more Viruses

News.com breaks the story (and 8000 readers submit) that Microsoft distributed Nimda-infected copies of Visual Studio .Net in Korea. I don't even know what to say here; nothing seems adequate, except to point out that "trustworthy computing" does not seem to have had any effect whatsoever. News.com just updated their story to point out that it probably won't infect the people who installed Visual Studio .Net, but it's still a rather nasty faux pas for a company that's supposed to be cleaning up its act.

Comments

Slamming MS

[glh]

OK, someone messed up.. but it isn't as bad as it sounds. First off, it wasn't MS that put the virus in, it was some third party thing they used to convert the language to Korean. However, MS should have at least run virus scan on it before they shipped it. Second, the person running VS.NET would actually have to install IE 5.5 over IE 6 (why would anyone do that) and browse a certain help file in order for it to get infected.

I'm not trying to defend MS. Just pointing out the facts (or at least how they were stated in the article). On one hand it's kind of funny to read through all the quick one-liner jokes about MS (definitely worth a chuckle) but I think MS isn't quite as bad as they're being made out to be.

By the way, anyone know the company that wrote the nimda infected software?

Re:Slamming MS

[_xeno_]

Actually, according to the article at least, Microsoft did scan the files for viruses prior to shipping. However, they apparently have it set up to only scan files that they expect to be there, and therefore missed the added Nimba file. The way I read it, the Nimba file is not really part of the package and can never be accessed in normal usage of the product, and can only be accessed if the user goes looking through the actual help files that come with the system.

Assuming that by "help files" they mean "VS.Net Documentation" then there are quite a few help files covering everything from JScript, VB, C#, C++, to the Windows Platform API, the C# class library, and more - which means it'd be practically impossible to manage to find the one Nimba file amoungst the croud. However, if they just mean tool help, then that content is a lot more limited, but I somehow doubt that is the case.

I have to wonder how much about that "scan only files that should be there" is really spin doctoring, and if they didn't really scan the disk and are instead coming up with an excuse for having missed the presence of the file.

Anyway, the Slashdot writeup is, as usual, way overblown in its anti-Microsoft slant. If they're going to write tirades about McAfee scaremongering, then they probably shouldn't do it themselves.

(And, by the way, Michael is the author of both articles...)

Re:Slamming MS

[MrResistor]

It's actually even more difficult than that. The infected file isn't an actual help file, it's an extra file that's not even supposed to be there, and isn't linked or referenced anywhere in VS.NET. They'd have to install IE 5.5 over IE 6 and browse to the directory the help files are kept in and actively search for and open the infected file.

Really, it's a close to harmless as you can get, considering the astronomical improbability of someone executing the infected file by accident. Of course, one should never underestimate the ingenuity of fools, so I have no doubt that it will happen.

On the whole, I have to give MS credit for the way they are handling this. They are offering free clean replacements to everyone who has an infected copy, they have a patch out, and they are spreading the news so that people are informed and thus able to fix the problem. I'm a little curious about the "patch", but I suppose it's a more reliable solution than just telling people to delete the file.

Yes, I am pointing and laughing at MS right now, I am typically an MS basher after all, but at the end of the day I have to say that I wish they would deal with more of their problems as honorably as they've dealt with this one. It would have been really easy for them to sweep this under the rug and pretend it never existed.

Re:What... the... hell....

[Ooblek]

You should have realized it was a joke - however lame it was.

By the way, this is just another example of a premature attack by OS zealots. Just as the case of the cross-platform virus discussed previously, the Nimda file is installed as part of the help system, but is never loaded by the help system. As the tounge-in-cheek editorial posted by the illustrious Slashdot editors put it, "Only a complete moron would get infected by this virus." So unless someone in Korea is stupid enough to uninstall IE 6.0 (required for .Net to run), install IE 5.5, and then load the Nimda file, it is unlikely that they will get infected. For every MS goof, there is an equal goof in the OS community. (But we all know people that point that out get modded down....)

Trust No One

[bsd-mon]

I wouldn't say that the Trustworthy initiatiave failed, but this will hopefully teach MS the number one lesson in security and viruslessness - trust no one. In the end, my email system is only as virus free as yours. If you are infected by Klez/nimda/... you still harass my bandwidth and my procmail filters. I'm just not dumb enough to run that .exe that h0t_ch1x@hotmail.com just sent me.

Just because MS code and systems are "secure" and "virus-free", as soon as they hand the code off to someone else, the code is only as virus free as their system is.

Re:Give it a rest

[Violet Null]

Let's have more computer news and stuff about FreeBSD and Linux and less "make fun of" news about Microsoft.

Go here. See the section entitled "Exclude Stories from the Homepage"? Find the box that says "Microsoft" and check it. Scroll all the way to the bottom and click the "Save" button. Walah.

Just to be fair...

[newerbob]

...about three times that I can remember software from APPLE came with viruses. And this was direct from APPLE not by way of a translation company.

Microsoft's agent that put the virus in is the culprit here, and the risk, as news.com pointed out, is low.