Today's missive.

[camwyn]

I sent this out to everyone in my office today after an incident with Beagle.

---

Okay, folks, we've recently had an upswing in virus activity. "But camwyn," I hear you say, "isn't that handled automatically by our wonderful software? Don't we have nothing to fear?"

Alas, this is not always the case.

You see, viruses are written by people who have nothing better to do with their time. As soon as the virus writers discover their little electronic graffiti pals no longer work, they make a few changes to the program code. And hey, presto- the latest version slips under the radar. The antivirus software packages can't recognise a virus program if they've never encountered it before.

"Oh, no!" you cry. "How terrible!"

Yes, it *is* terrible, isn't it? Especially since viruses these days can fake their sender to look like they're from someone you know.

"You mean a completely antisocial computer program that exists to spread porn and chaos might not be entirely honest about its orign? Gasp! Shock! Horror!"

Alas, it's true. Most viruses these days will infect a computer- usually a home computer, since home users *coughcoughlikemyownparentscough* don't always bother to INSTALL ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE. Then they'll go through that computer's email address book when Outlook or Outlook Express is started. They'll pick an address from the book, claim to be from that address, and mail themselves to bunches of other email addresses in that same book. They're often quite good at changing subject lines randomly, since the only way to infect a system is to move in looking as if they're something innocent.

What this means to you, my friendly neighbourhood users, is that you can NOT necessarily trust emails arriving from people you know.

"But- why, I've always thought you said we could!" I hear you say. So sorry, but this is not the case. We had a virus arrive at the Chapter the other day in the form of an email claiming to be from someone the RSVP department knew, with a subject line of "Re: ", and with an attachment. This little bugger was loaded and ready for bear, and could've caused a lot of trouble if a scan of the recipient's computer hadn't caught it and eradicated it.

UNLESS YOU ARE WAITING FOR AN ATTACHMENT, do not open emails with attachments. UNLESS YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY WAITING FOR A PARTICULAR ATTACHMENT, do not open emails with attachments. "Re: " is not an acceptable subject line. Neither is "Here is the document." Neither is a blank subject line. All three are commonly used by viruses, as are many others. Tell EVERY SINGLE PERSON who owes you an email attachment for some reason to put a VERY. SPECIFIC. SUBJECT. LINE. Agree on that line beforehand. And don't open ANY messages from them unless that subject line is being used!

Meanwhile, learn from my parents' example and *install antivirus software on your home computer*. Then use it regularly, and update it at LEAST once a week.

Thank you.

-camwyn

Comments

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

You know, this rant is almost word-for-word the same rant as my IT guru's rant here at work.
Doh.
Do you all ever feel like we could just pull the string at the back of your neck and this speech would come out?

[camwyn]

Considering that I've been giving this speech in varying forms ever since the lone glorious day I got to walk into the cubicle farm and shout "WHO HERE IS A BIG STUPID JERK?" (widespread SirCam infection)... it's not so much a pull-the-string thing as a reflexive act of regurgitation, at this point. Like what you get with wolves when the puppies come up looking for dinner.

"Um, camwyn? I had this email and it said it was from $CONTACT, and it had an attachment, and I wasn't expecting the attachment but I *was* waiting to hear from her about something, so I clicked it anyway-"
*BLAAARP*
"oh. Right. Advice on how to avoid viruses."

[derien.livejournal.com]

I wish you worked for ... oh, wait, I work for the government. They'd never allow you to have a sense of humor.

*L*

[jjloa.livejournal.com]

I just remember one job I was working at ... a job full of foresters and scientist types ... and us tech people during that huge breakout of that 'I love you virus'.

And one of the higher tech people turning to a bunch of them clamouring about how their computers were all screwed up, and asking why on earth they were opening emails from their fellow burly man foresters that was titled 'I love you' and asking whether they had anything they'd like to tell us ... that made them back off for a bit at least as they realized the implications ... (and more truly than the actual 'implication' made, the absolute silliness of just opening any email because of who it was from, no matter what it said)

I thank whatever powers that be that this type of tech work is only mine occasionally and that I can shirk it most of the time. I don't think I could handle the kinda tech support you're doing here *L* Would drive me nuts!

[faeriethistle.livejournal.com]

ha! that damn beagle has been trying to get into my compy for days!!
it only uses one certain address. so now it had become a game for me to wake up and see how many times the beagle has tried to burrow under my fence.

as a child we had a beagle. i loved it. it sang so pretty and was so much fun to play with. my parents hated it because it sang so pretty and wanted to make more holes that a groundhog.

not only do i have antivirus, i have antispyware too.
i have an aunti betty, an aunti audrey, and about 9 other aunties as well.

[sundre.livejournal.com]

thou art lovely and wise. what is it about computers that fools people into thinking that the box has a brain? or that that brain is a benevolent being?

i worked at a cadet camp in whitehorse for three summers, as a clerk in the offices. there were only three computers on the base with internet access, but there was hella disk sharing going on.

one year, every comp in the camp became infected with a program that could read who the word processor software was registered to, and a little dialog popped up that read: "canadian forces northern area headquarters is a stupid idiot." i spent three days upgrading the virus software on every computer.

then one officer (the bright star who had brought this upon us as we later discovered) followed our instructions for cleaning viruses from his hard drive, but somehow thought that little magic beams of energy would reach out from the computer and cleanse his disks as well, or something to that effect.

guess what happened then?

it only took a week for him to reinfect everyone with another version of that little darling, one which would crash the word processor after insulting my employer, and so i had to traipse all over the camp again. at least it got me out of the hq building from time to time.

[camwyn]

Oh, gosh! We got that one too- SirCam, I think it was? That was the virus that convinced our CEO that yes, it was time to spend money on antivirus software. We'd been infected for more than a year, but the prior sysadmin hadn't bothered with a/v, and the boss didn't think we were of enough interest to anyone to be a target. Then came June 14th (the virus is set to go off on the 14th day of any month between June and December, when opening, saving, or closing an MS Office file) and the CEO got told he was a Big Stupid Jerk. I downloaded a free clean-up utility and fixed him, then went to the rest of the office... and cheerfully asked 'em, very loudly, "WHO HERE IS A BIG STUPID JERK?"

3/4 of the hands in the office went up. We got McAfee after that.

[irian.livejournal.com]

Oh well. Probably the only upside to using antiquated Windows 98 OS is that none of those newfangled viruses are ever designed to affect older OSes anymore...