jln@acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad) (08/21/90)
Disinfectant 2.1 ================ August 18, 1990 Disinfectant 2.1 is a new release of our free Macintosh anti-viral utility. Version 2.1 recognizes two new viruses which have been discovered in Ithaca, New York. The first new virus is a new strain of the MDEF virus (MDEF B). The main difference between the old MDEF A strain and the new MDEF B strain is that the MDEF B strain bypasses the Vaccine protection INIT. The second new virus is named CDEF. CDEF is very similar to the WDEF virus. It only infects the invisible RDesktopS files used by the Finder. It does not infect applications, document files, or other system files. It spreads from disk to disk very rapidly. Although the behavior of the CDEF virus is similar to that of the WDEF virus, it is not a simple clone of WDEF. It is a completely different virus. The virus does not intentionally try to do any damage. It does not appear to cause as many problems as does the WDEF virus. As with all viruses, however, the CDEF virus is still dangerous. As with the WDEF virus, you can remove a CDEF infection from a disk by rebuilding the Desktop file. The CDEF virus is named after the type of resource it uses to infect files. CDEF resources are a normal part of the Macintosh operating system, so you should not become alarmed if you see them with ResEdit or some other tool. Any CDEF resource in a Finder Desktop file, however, is cause for concern. Version 2.1 also corrects a few errors in version 2.0, including incompatibilites with A/UX 2.0, Icon-It!, Spy!, SuperClock, and Rival. See the "Version History" section of the 2.1 online manual for details. The Disinfectant sample source code has also been updated to version 2.1. Disinfectant 2.1 is available now via anonymous FTP from site acns.nwu.edu [129.105.49.1]. It will also be available soon on sumex-aim.stanford.edu, rascal.ics.utexas.edu, comp.binaries.mac, CompuServe, GEnie, Delphi, BIX, MacNet, America Online, Calvacom, AppleLink, and other popular sources of free and shareware software. Macintosh users who do not have access to electronic sources of free and shareware software may obtain a copy of Disinfectant by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope and an 800K floppy disk to the author at the address below. People outside the US should send an international postal reply coupon instead of US stamps (available from any post office). Please use sturdy envelopes, preferably cardboard disk mailers. John Norstad Academic Computing and Network Services Northwestern University 2129 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 Bitnet: jln@nuacc Internet: jln@acns.nwu.edu CompuServe: 76666,573 AppleLink: A0173