Re: Virus Alert!
David (dstrother@pop.dn.net)
Sun, 16 May 1999 07:43:03 -0400
KurtCapt87@aol.com wrote:
>
> I don't understand. Why was an attachment sent containing a known virus?
A fair question. Except for the perpetrator who originates such a
trojan horse, the subsequent infectees do not pass it on
intentionally....or even knowingly. They don't have to, since it
automatically gets into one's mail client and automatically passes it on
to a given number of addresses in one's address book.
Safe computing is like safe sex: if you don't know your partner, don't
open the attachment.
What happens here is that innocent folks, usually with relatively little
computer and internet savvy, open the attachment and then it's all over.
Remember, any file the ends in .exe is automatically self-executing and
does whatever the programmer set it up to do, and one doesn't know until
too late when it happens.
If you don't have a good virus scanner and have been infected, there's a
good web page with instructions for removal of happy.exe at
http://www.sybaweb.co.za/virusinfo.html
.....and for more information, do an AltaVista search for " +virus
+happy.exe ". You'll be given 189 websites from which to choose.
Good birding.....and computing...
David Strother
Bethesda, Maryland