Deadly Virus Lurking

[hammAR]

Hi All,

I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus! I checked snopes.com, and it is for real!! http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/postcard.asp Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.


PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!

You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled "POSTCARD," regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which 'burns' the whole hard disc C of your computer. This virus will be received from someone
who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called" POSTCARD," even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it.! Shut down your computer immediately.

This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus.

This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

[1911fan]

or the more simple solution, get a Mac and never ever worry about it

[Aceq2jot]

Its like them chain letters etc. Basically even the basic A.V will think that it is a virus. I have my bios set to protect my MBR and nothing can be written with out my permission, and i am not dumb enough to allow it

[hammAR]

I guess this is true but not quite the whole truth, this is some update info that I also received:

This is why I don't like these kinds of emails. They're almost ALWAYS ********.

This is a fraud. The virus that the snopes link is discussing is a low-risk worm, and CERTAINLY doesn't destroy your computer. It opens your computer up for attacks, but it looks like it can turn it into a zombie for DDoS attacks. And there IS a repair for it.

I haven't heard of any virus that overwrites the master boot record. And I would have if something like that was going around.

[JohninMinnesota]

or the more simple solution, get a Mac and never ever worry about it

Unless you're like me, and run Parallels on your Mac

[BRIT_in_the_weeds]

[hammAR]

I've known people that got a virus at Brighton Pier.......................

[ttousi]

I've known people that got a virus at Brighton Pier.......................

3 in a row for dough

[Fast351]

or the more simple solution, get a Mac and never ever worry about it

The biggest reason Macs are not attacked as often is because there are fewer virii written for Macs. The reason for that is the relatively limited number of Macs as compared to Windows PCs.

Trust me, security by obscurity is not a good security model.

Anything with a processor and writeable storage is vulnerable to attack, ANYTHING.

Now I will grant that Macs and Unix flavors of many sorts are more secure than Windows by design, but that doesn't mean there isn't an avenue for attack.

(BTW, I like Macs, I'm a fan of Macs, they're well designed and built machines).

[meltedeyes]

or the more simple solution, get a Mac and never ever worry about it

The biggest reason Macs are not attacked as often is because there are fewer virii written for Macs. The reason for that is the relatively limited number of Macs as compared to Windows PCs.

Trust me, security by obscurity is not a good security model.

Anything with a processor and writeable storage is vulnerable to attack, ANYTHING.

Now I will grant that Macs and Unix flavors of many sorts are more secure than Windows by design, but that doesn't mean there isn't an avenue for attack.

(BTW, I like Macs, I'm a fan of Macs, they're well designed and built machines).

There have been a multitude of viruses for UNIX and other business class systems, such as the Morris Worm. Part of the reason there are no current viruses for Mac OS X is because of it's security. Virus's are generally reliant on the user's access rights. SInce most WIndows users always log in as Administrator, or a user with Administrator rights, a virus will also have those rights and be able to do whatever it wants. If you are logged in as a restricted user, the the amount of damage a virus can do is limited, such as rewriting the boot record. Mac OS X uses a restricted user account by default. You have to make a bit of an effort to log in as an administrator, and even more to become Root or super user. Because of the security design of OS X whenever a virus tries to do anything it pops up messages on the screen asking for the administrator password. Unless you are in the process of installing something, this is generally a bad sign. There are proof of concept viruses out there for the Mac. Yes they work, but no, they are not terribly effective because of the user rights issues.

Yes, security through obscurity is a horrible security model, but Apple does not rely on that model by any means.

It's not because Macs are rare (they're not, and are in fact gaining ground again), but because of the security model Apple put in place because of the BSD subsystem that makes attacking them difficult, not impossible, difficult. A virus today is usually not written to wipe a hard drive, that was 80's and 90's. Today, they would rather zombie your system, or install a trojan to pull ads to your system and play vengence games (best buy wouldn't accept my return of a three year old computer game, that version 2 just came out for, and the CD is scratched. I'm going to DDOS their website to get even!) or to make some money.

Other things to look for in these virus chain letters: CNN will not be the company to issue a virus alert. Microsoft is hands off when it comes to a virus. They say nothing, but occaisionally release a patch. McAffee, Symantec, TrendMicro, Kapersky, these are the names to look for. if anything else is listed that is nominally a news organization or not in the anti-virus business as making statements about it, it's probably a hoax.

Also, having sector 0 over written is not the end of your drive. a little command called fdisk \mbr will fix most Master Boot Record problems. If it doesn't, you can usually plug the drive into another computer and pull the information off. If all else fails, there is software that will do a scan of the drive and make the attempt to rebuild the partition tables. Hardly the most destructive virus ever.

[Aceq2jot]

or the more simple solution, get a Mac and never ever worry about it

The biggest reason Macs are not attacked as often is because there are fewer virii written for Macs. The reason for that is the relatively limited number of Macs as compared to Windows PCs.

Trust me, security by obscurity is not a good security model.

Anything with a processor and writeable storage is vulnerable to attack, ANYTHING.

Now I will grant that Macs and Unix flavors of many sorts are more secure than Windows by design, but that doesn't mean there isn't an avenue for attack.

(BTW, I like Macs, I'm a fan of Macs, they're well designed and built machines).

There have been a multitude of viruses for UNIX and other business class systems, such as the Morris Worm. Part of the reason there are no current viruses for Mac OS X is because of it's security. Virus's are generally reliant on the user's access rights. SInce most WIndows users always log in as Administrator, or a user with Administrator rights, a virus will also have those rights and be able to do whatever it wants. If you are logged in as a restricted user, the the amount of damage a virus can do is limited, such as rewriting the boot record. Mac OS X uses a restricted user account by default. You have to make a bit of an effort to log in as an administrator, and even more to become Root or super user. Because of the security design of OS X whenever a virus tries to do anything it pops up messages on the screen asking for the administrator password. Unless you are in the process of installing something, this is generally a bad sign. There are proof of concept viruses out there for the Mac. Yes they work, but no, they are not terribly effective because of the user rights issues.

Yes, security through obscurity is a horrible security model, but Apple does not rely on that model by any means.

It's not because Macs are rare (they're not, and are in fact gaining ground again), but because of the security model Apple put in place because of the BSD subsystem that makes attacking them difficult, not impossible, difficult. A virus today is usually not written to wipe a hard drive, that was 80's and 90's. Today, they would rather zombie your system, or install a trojan to pull ads to your system and play vengence games (best buy wouldn't accept my return of a three year old computer game, that version 2 just came out for, and the CD is scratched. I'm going to DDOS their website to get even!) or to make some money.

Other things to look for in these virus chain letters: CNN will not be the company to issue a virus alert. Microsoft is hands off when it comes to a virus. They say nothing, but occaisionally release a patch. McAffee, Symantec, TrendMicro, Kapersky, these are the names to look for. if anything else is listed that is nominally a news organization or not in the anti-virus business as making statements about it, it's probably a hoax.

Also, having sector 0 over written is not the end of your drive. a little command called fdisk \mbr will fix most Master Boot Record problems. If it doesn't, you can usually plug the drive into another computer and pull the information off. If all else fails, there is software that will do a scan of the drive and make the attempt to rebuild the partition tables. Hardly the most destructive virus ever.

People are just os funny and fget scared so easily about something they dont know anything about eh

Kinda reminds me of the anit's

I was going to say similar along what you said but i thought i would see the reaction of the computer Sheeple

[Woodchuck]