[comp.virus] nVIR problems

atama@blake.acs.washington.edu (Kakogawa) (10/20/89)

We have a network in the Microcomputer lab with more than 20 Macintoshes
 connected to it. We have been experiencing a severe bout of nVIR. It is
usually nVIR-A or nVIR-B infecting the system or finder of the startup
diskettes. It has also spread, we believe, extensively among users before
we were alerted to it. The problem:

We were told that the DA VirusDetective did not always detect the viruses
probably. I haven't checked this personally. We started using SAM ... in the
meanwhile because disinfectant crashed the multifinder periodically. Today we
found that a diskette was reported by disinfectant to be virus-free BUT SAM ...
reported it as being infected and we had it "repair"ed using SAM....

I have forgotten the full name for the antiviral program SAM.... Can anyone
who is better informed enlighten us
a) Why Disinfectant(V 1.2) didn't warn us?
b) Is SAM whatever it is, better or is it just seeing ghosts (unlikely?)?
c) We have Vaccine on the network. Why did it not alert us at the beginning?
Actually, we caught on because vaccine eventually warned us. By that time
so many diskettes and the network itself had become infected that we had it
shut down.
d) Is it true that the DA VirusDetective is not as fully reliable (at least
for nVIR strains) as it should be?

Soma
Consultant, Microcomputer lab
Health Sciences Building, UW

PS. Please respond as completely as you can. If you feel this is a legitimate
concern please respond on the net. If someone has already done it, but you
have alternatives/insights please respond by e-mail. I'll summarize if I get
any/many good replies. Thanks for your time.