A new breed of superviruses hidden in the content of email messages will stretch IT security to the limit, experts warn. Read it here.
Printable View
A new breed of superviruses hidden in the content of email messages will stretch IT security to the limit, experts warn. Read it here.
imho...that article sounded more like a press release than an article...wasn't alot to it...cept the scary title...
seems to me that just a littie background info and backup to the claims would be warranted...and besides if they're claiming 100% they're either lying or stupid...(or have been taking pr lessons from larry ellison... :D )
Hmmm, 100%? That's what I thought too.Quote:
seems to me that just a littie background info and backup to the claims would be warranted...and besides if they're claiming 100% they're either lying or stupid...(or have been taking pr lessons from larry ellison
I agree. It sounds like pure press-release. No useful information, and a bunch of stuff to make themselves sound good. First, 100%? No way. Secondly, they have no technical information on how people are hiding viruses in TEXTUAL DATA of e-mail...
"Yeah, that .txt file will erase your hard drive!!"
I myself am not worried in the least over these 'supervirii'.......or "superviruses," as the article seems to call them. The only way in which these alleged virii would be likely to enter a system is through an attatchment, possibly referenced by an html email, or through embedded executable content. And anyone who would run an embedded executable from an email rather deserves what they get. Only those who are particularly clueless about opening attatchments, or those who use Outlook, would really be at risk.
It's worth noting that this was taken from "The Australian" which is an Australia-wide newspaper. They don't go into detail because they have such a large target audience (ie. it's not an IT-only publication). Maybe more was said. We don't know. If anyone does have more info please post it. I posted this to spark disussion which it looks like it has. I don't think the article was meant to be comprehensive in any way but it's something to think about :).Quote:
I agree. It sounds like pure press-release. No useful information, and a bunch of stuff to make themselves sound good. First, 100%? No way. Secondly, they have no technical information on how people are hiding viruses in TEXTUAL DATA of e-mail...
...that article isnt even about email viruses...its got like 1 paragraph about these suposed "superviruses" and then rest is just "the company that found it is so great because of what they have done and here is a plug for the service they are going to start offering soon"
discussion is always good.... :)
Quote:
They don't go into detail because they have such a large target audience (ie. it's not an IT-only publication).
this is actually a big prob...with this article and others...people who read it are likely to panic...or figure ..well if that's happening what can [I] do about it...and then they do nothing because in a way the article says we're already screwed no matter what we do...which is simply not the case...
this is typical of the press tho..makes a great headline...and they don;t have to back it up with nothin....
the biggest problems with security on the internet today are ignorance and apathy...search for my thread about 90+% of outlook users not having any patches installed...i mean who needs a supervirus when you have that kind of exploitable base...
omfg,
That article was written by someone who know nothing about virii, security, or anything for that matter. Hmm. . . maybe it was bill gates who wrote it.
Theoretically, how could text within a message do anything? Some sort of html/javascript/activeX exploit?
I would hope it wouldn't be sometihng along the lines of this:
In order to gain access to your free _____, please download a C compiler, copy and paste the follwing into it, compile it and save it as virus.exe, then run it.
hehe...ya meebe it's the newfie virus
(that's how it came across my desk you can insert yer own varEthnicGroup
it goes somethin like this...
"hey..
so dis is a virus eh...now we don't know much about computers and such...we was gonna buy a book...but we went for a beer instead...so what we was thinki...eh..was dis...if you could delete all the files on your computer and then pass this on to a bunch a your friends..well ..dat'd be good eh...
so like have a good day eh..."
maybe it's just ignorance talking but I always thought a virus had to be executed and the so-called super virus is hidden in e-mail itself and just by looking at you have infected yourself is that what's trying to say. If that's the case could now potentially all forms of Internet media compromised example MP3 AVI JPEG gif and so on .
How can text run as a program unless it's compiled?Quote:
Originally posted here by £ïqµÌÐ ¢hªº§
maybe it's just ignorance talking but I always thought a virus had to be executed and the so-called super virus is hidden in e-mail itself and just by looking at you have infected yourself is that what's trying to say. If that's the case could now potentially all forms of Internet media compromised example MP3 AVI JPEG gif and so on .
I guess that's what I meant to say by doesn't have to be executed in order to run the virus code. Isn't there a lot of viruses that run off a Microsoft word with embedded objects or something similar? could you have a virus that is executed by another program like it the virus code was embedded into a picture of something and you tried to view that picture could the program somehow run the code that the possible?
Shell scripts. Batch Files. Thats beside the point. It can't run because it is viewed, only if it is executed.Quote:
How can text run as a program unless it's compiled?
Almost sounds like they are calling vbs outlook virii that run on preview of message the new super-virus.
nice try though.
the sad part is they'll probobly sucker some people into their (no doubt) over priced over rated service.
DO YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER.....
[email protected] The editor
[email protected] Tessa Denton
Superviruses threaten email
I am totally insulted by this article and never again will i recommend you site, too anyone.
Whenever someone mentions australianIT, i will tell them theres something lacking there, and thats the 'bullsh' between the 'n' in Australian and the 'i' in IT
I'd rather them just call Outlook a virus and be done with it.
They should also include a surgeon general warning when installing Outlook........