ralex@tigger.colorado.edu (Repenning Alexander) (05/13/89)
Thank all of you out there for sending me very supporting
hints concerning the nVIR virus and other ones. Here's a brief
survey of the recommendations I received:
There are basically two types of anti virus programs: pre
virus and post virus.
The first class of programs help you to keep viruses from
entering your system. These programs usually come as
INITSs or cdev's. The two most recommended are Vaccine and
GateKeeper 1.1. Vahe Kassardjian points out that many newer
viruses like ANTI (from French) and MEV# (from Belgium)
can only be captured with GateKeeper. Some sources (not
a complete list) : Vaccine: Berkeley Macintosh User's Group
(BMUG), sumex; GateKeeper: sumex.
The pre-virus group of programs is used if you already have
(or you think you have) a virus. There appears to be a big
favourite in this class: Disinfectant 1.1 (available on sumex,
GEnie, comp.sys.mac.binaries archieves and probably many
other places). Disinfectant not only searches your disks for
viruses it also fixes infected applications. Furthermore, it
gives you a clue which application initiated the virus in your
system. This feature is especially helpful to trace the virus
back to its origin.
Virex is a commercial product available at good
software stores.
Ingrid (uunet!microsoft!ingridt@ncar.UCAR.EDU) also warns
from the use of sound master sound files because they also
might contain virus resources! Note, the occurrence of viruses
is not limited to applications.
Finally some notes concerning the social implications of viruses
supplied by
ames!mailrus!BBN.COM!apple.com!voder!pyramid!infmx!ape!cor
tesi@ncar.UCAR.EDU
Notes from someone who had BOTH nVIR and SCORES:
* you've probably had it longer than you think
* you probably got it from a friend who doesn't yet know
he/she has it; be gentle
* it's on your diskettes, too!!!!
* it's on your backed-up files, too!!!!!
* you have very likely given it to other people; to ease the
shock of telling them, arrive with a disk of
virus cures in hand
* there's a good chance you've taken it to work or school;
think long and hard before you decide to 'fess up
there (better to "discover" it at work?)
* after you're cured, install the Vaccine init (on the BMUG disk),
it works.
Thanks again, Alex