To all of you wonderful windows users here is a handy little method for killing the *.vbs, *.eml, *.wsh type email viruses.

First off some of you new people might not know what the above file types mean. they are associations of different windows script files. Most commonly mass mailer worms are written as a script. many of the times in VBS.

One thing all of these script files have in common is they require a run-time interpreter to execute the script and trigger the infection and propagation routeens.

There are two (2) files on windows machines that allow the execution of these scripts.

Windows NT/2000
c:\winnt\system32\wscript.exe
c:\winnt\system32\cscript.exe

windows 9x
c:\windows\system32\wscript.exe
c:\windows\system32\cscript.exe

In windows NT right click on the files and go to security. then change the permissions to Special Access > read only

In 2000 change to read only.

In windows 9x change the file extension from *.exe to .ban or something with a distinct meaning to you. I say this because if some application needs that file for something (doesnt happen often) then you can just change the permissions or file ext. back to normal.

Anyway it will protect you from most mass mail worms.

Ciao

-Q