Slashdot Mirror
Nasty New Virus Variants
Lucidus writes "Numerous journals, such as Mac Daily News and The Motley Fool, are reporting that the latest versions of the Beagle/Bagle virus can infect users' computers whether or not they open an attachment. Apparently, the simple act of selecting the message activates the code. Given that you have to select an E-mail to delete it, how are users supposed to protect themselves from this one?"
Don't use Microsoft products... or use them and have an up-to-date modern Anti Virus scanner.
Given that you have to select an E-mail to delete it, how are users supposed to protect themselves from this one?
Well, this one is gonna start a whole slew of flaming and trolling over the virtues of one platform over another as it is kinda a loaded question with a simple answer:
Switch
So let's start right off with a big razz towards Windows users from both the Linux and Macintosh communities.........
Thhhbibibibibbbpt!!!
Seriously though, when are you guys gonna get the picture? Microsoft if chasing a moving target here and they will always be behind the curve, reacting to the latest virus outbreak until they fix what is fundamentally wrong with the Windows architecture. Hopefully this will happen with Longhorn in 2006......or 2007.........or whenever.
I don't know. Webmail, one of the numerous non-vulnerable email clients for Windows, maybe give up email entirely?
This flies in the face of science.
The viruses have mutated in the wake of developed resistance (slightly more educated users). It's an evolutionary battle being fought...
But as there are way too many deployments of Outlook as it is, and because it is Outlook/IE that is being exploited, the first solution would be to increase diversity in that field. Other mail clients, such as Thunderbird, or Eudora, will thrive while Outlook continues to succumb to these new diseases.
Oh who am I kidding, Outlook will continue to wreak its wrath upon the Net and cause us to all suffer as a result.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
How to fix this? Install mozilla!
Anyway, according to this article here,
"Bagle exploits a flaw in Outlook, revealed in October of 2003, that allows a hacker to upload and execute a file on a user's PC without that user opening the file. Microsoft has issued a patch for the flaw in October, but users who have not updated their systems with this patch are at risk."
If you run an MS machine, and don't know that you have to update regularly, you need your head checked. Besides, updating an MS machine really is easy.
One feature of MS Outlook that is missing from most other email clients is the ability to download just email headers. I use this feature to review sender/subject and I can identify all spam just from that.
Actually, I use my own program to download headers, score them for likely spam, delete the garbage emails(without ever downloading the actual content), then start outlook to get the real ones.
Obviously, if a legit sender transmits a virus, it's a problem, but I guess that's why I pay Symantec.
Unless your IT department cluelessly refuses to turn on IMAP4 "for security reasons."
Mozilla Thunderbird is a great lightweight email client replacement for Outlook. Your average home user who has an imap or pop account from an ISP really has no good excuse not to uninstall Outlook from their machine and switch. Corporate users on the other hand are a little more screwed, since many of them use Exchange servers that don't have OWA turned on and/or aren't Exchange 2000/2003, which precludes using Evolution's commercial plugin to get calendaring integration and whatnot. However corp users that do meet those server-side requirements can do so. Or if you don't use or need the calendaring part in your organization and the exhcnage server has IMAP, then you can also go Thunderbird there too.
11*43+456^2
... using email software which doesn't render HTML, and instead shows it as plain text without images?
... well the program has a link so you can view it in your default browser, if you really have to.
Yes, I wrote it. I wrote it because 99% of the messages I receive in HTML format are advertising. Most of those use dinky little images with referrer IDs to verify your email address is valid. The 1% I really need to see in HTML
I know it's going back to the dark ages, but maybe NOT running javascript, html, etc is actually GOOD when it comes to emails.
I'm not advertising this thing, it's freeware anyway. I was a moderately happy Outlook Express user for years, but the lack of spam torturing implements drove me to write my own. Yes, I tried Mozilla, Eudora, etc etc. I think Thunderbird looks interesting too, and I recommend it. But personally I can't do without my POP3 preview window with colour tagging for spam, valid mail, blocked senders, ignored, etc. And deleting stuff before download. And bayesian filtering. And anything else I feel like adding, whenever I want to.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
I pity you so :'( tsk tsk
Proud user of Pine since 1994. Thank you, Univ. of Washington!
? HELP - Get help using Pine
C COMPOSE MESSAGE - Compose and send a message
I MESSAGE INDEX - View messages in current folder
L FOLDER LIST - Select a folder to view
A ADDRESS BOOK - Update address book
S SETUP - Configure Pine Options
Q QUIT - Leave the Pine program
Copyright 1989-2003. PINE is a trademark of the University of Washington.
? Help P PrevCmd R RelNotes
O OTHER CMDS > [ListFldrs] N NextCmd K KBLock
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
And it costs MORE not to switch. Unfortunately, most companies can't see past their nose as far as technology costs are concerned.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
"Hard work never killed anyone." -- Some Dead Guy
Re: My Photo by Cindi
Re: Hi Sweetheart by Melissa
Re: From you Secret Admirer by Linda Lovelace
etc.
Moderate this comment
Negative: Offtopic Flamebait Troll Redundant
Positive: Insightful Interesting Informative Funny
Nothing to see here
Now, one side of this is that SMTP needs (and lacks) a "this particular message will always be refused" error code. That would work well for virus filters, since the delivering system (eg Yahoo) could them just discard that message and continue with everything else.
The real fix is not to use these buggy mail clients. Like M$ LookOut!
And, though it's not applicable to the outright-buffer-overflow viruses like this one, not to use systems with the vile design flaw of letting users click on attachments and execute stuff. For example, my mutt mail reader has a mailcap that drives its attachment handling. Every clause runs a viewer. If I get a .exe I get told its size or offered an opportunity to save it to disc. It does not offer or try to run it.
This core distinction is the weakness in the windows mail world:
no attachment should have executable power. An explicit user driven
install ritual should be needed to get such a thing into
a context where it can be run.
i.e. it should be a safe action for a user to double click
any attachment - that act should always invoke a viewer of some kind.
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 cs@cskk.id.au http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
Just strip all executable attachments. We do this and haven't had a single virus hit our network since implementing this simple step. Of course some worms have been distributing themselves inside of zips but that still takes more steps and hence more chances for the user to think about what they are doing, plus MS email clients can't auto-execute them (most people run Groupwise client on the Citrix farm but some do run Outlook via POP).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I'm not saying this to single out Windows users. Most non-professional Mac users are the same way. It's just that Windows is used by people who use what everyone else uses because they feel safe in doing so. They may not know how their computers work, but they're more afraid of looking deviant than having technical malfunctions.
The subconscious refrain of Windows users around the globe is, "Well, at least I'm not the only one with this problem."
Those Windows users who actively try to prepare themselves against the almost daily barrage of new worms, viruses, vulnerabilities, and other Windows annoyances still have a difficult time keeping up with it all. Even experienced Windows power users frequently find themselves overpowered by the ongoing war against malicious code.
So the solution to this vulnerability is simple. But when you look at the situation in context, the potential for widespread havoc is a lot greater.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
How can you get a 0.1% false negative rate when 30% of spam is getting through?
He isn't saying that 30% of spam is getting through.... He is saying that they are blocking 70% of their incoming mail as it is spam. That means that 30% is determined to be real mail.
I love Linux and have used it since 1996, but I don't love half-truths. Mods, do what you must:
1. Unless you have a special 'l00s4h' account for running network programs, you can lose anything owned by your normal account. Typically that's all your data (norp, zeraw, 3PMs, financial data, etc). You're saying losing all that stuff is _better_ than losing the core OS, which you can replace over HTTP in 10 minutes?
2. Even with 'l00s4h', if your kernel has priviledge escalation bugs, bad guys can still get r00t. Linux had two of these in the past six months.
3. You've personally audited mutt for overflow issues? How about the 1GB mozilla codebase?
4. You trust Debian? Gentoo? GNU? Even though they don't always cryptographically sign binaries and even though their servers were 0wned a few weeks back?
5. apt-get, emerge, etc don't typically use SSL, so how do you know you aren't being man-in-the-middled when you run it (as root)?
Linux can be made more secure than d0ze--but don't delude yourself, or others.
It's called the .NET runtime, and when Longhorn comes out and EVERYTHING including Windows itself is running on .NET libraries, you're going to have some damn secure systems. What will Slashdotters find to bitch about next? There's always something--it's impossible to satisfy people around here. The friggin' sky is always falling.
Color me cynical, but didn't MS tout the absolute security of W2k3? And Win2k before that? Sorry, with their record they're guilty until proven innocent.