Alan_J_Roberts@cup.portal.com (06/05/90)
This is a forward from John McAfee: ========================================================================== Creating bogus VIRUSCAN programs is becoming an increasingly popular pastime for underground hackers. In the past two months 5 such programs have appeared. Three of them appear to be innocuous, but the bogus version 65 discovered in Israel was extremely destructive, and the version 72 reported in the U.S. last week causes system crashes and file losses. I believe these problems are here to stay, and we can count on future bogus appearances. For this reason, it is important that all SCAN users obtain their updates from reliable sources. A reliable source, by my definition, is one that obtains their copy directly from HomeBase. If you are unsure of your source, then do not use the program. In any case, each new release should be Validated before using. When validating a new release of SCAN, use your known good copy of Validate. Do not replace your known copy with the copy distributed with each release. Validate has not changed since it was first released and no changes are planned for the forseeable future. So once you obtain a good copy, hang on to it. If you do not currently have a copy, then download it from a known reliable source. As a final precaution, verify the validate numbers by checking the on-line validation data base on HomeBase. The numbers within the data base are secure and cannot be tampered with. These same numbers are published on the larger public bulletin boards and some of the national networks. I have also been asked by a number of users to publish the validate numbers on VIRUS-L. Version 63 was released this past weekend and here are the numbers: SCAN.EXE - Size:46,535 Date:6-2-90 Check1:D30F Check2:1F82 CLEAN.EXE - Size:58,835 Date:6-2-90 Check1:429C Check2:062E VSHIELD.EXE - Size:40,987 Date:6-2-90 Check1:CCE7 Check2:01FB NETSCAN.EXE - Size:46,535 Date:6-2-90 Check1:2B07 Check2:0E87 John McAfee 408 988 3832 -voice 408 970 9727 -fax 408 988 4004 -BBS