Tobi Waves

In the good old times, when men were still men and computer virus writers were still technically brilliant hackers. Viruses used the uncountable holes in Microsofts ubiquitous Outlook eMail software to spread.

But even then, generally the rule was simple. If you don't want to be infected, don't run any code you don't know where it's coming from. If you have Outlook, make sure it's patched and properly configured. In Unix circles, people made fun of the whole situation by sending out mails which claimed to be a solidarity Virus, calling upon the Unix User to copy this mail to all addresses in his address book, to emulate a virus, as a gesture of solidarity with the Windows crowd.

Now, a few years later, Outlook has matured to the point that there have been no major holes for months. Never the less, eMail viruses still crop up and spread. Virus writer started to attack the users mind directly, by writing messages into the body of the virus email with the purpose of confusing the user into clicking the virus attachment, forgetting all the good advice they got. Fortunately the anti-virus software gets updated so quickly, that viruses are normally contained quickly.

Today though, mark the date, the whole matter entered an all new stage. I got the first virus which was contained in a password protected zip file. The password was contained in the accompanying email, so it is easy for a human to unpack, but anti virus software has no chance as it can not decrypt the zip file containing the virus. As a concept this sounds fine, but what totally kills me is that it seems to work. Since this morning, I get an increasing number of encrypted zip file viruses. There must actually be people who get this virus, unzip it using the supplied password and then run the thing in order to get infected.

I wonder how many people would hang themselves if they got a rope in the mail. Warden make sure all the cells are locked.