[3721] in WWW Security List Archive
Re: Re : Any internet virus
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Darren Cook)
Thu Dec 5 23:02:59 1996
To: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
From: darren@factcomm.co.jp (Darren Cook)
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 10:16:47 +0900
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
>> I don't know about you, but it seems to me that a virus that spreads
>> through ASCII is certainly nothing to worry about. Computer aren't
>> designed to execute ASCII files. It needs to be converted to binary
>> first. Or am I wrong?
>
>Wrong, sort of. The problem is that Windows 95 is too darned smart. You
>could construct a message with a Word document attached. Under some
>circumstances, W95 recognizes the document as a Word document, and
>launches Word and starts the document. This document can contain a macro
>that executes on startup. And POOF!
>
I didn't know that. Being as win95+Word is so common, this sounds very
dangerous.
Which email clients are affected?
Is there a simple way to switch off auto-executing/opening of attachments in
those programs?
Darren
