Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] mcafee self destructed

> No virus can really wipe out a harddrive. (thats urban myth),

Well, yea they can. I've personally rebuilt a FAT ( file allocation table )
trashed by a virus.

When I was at Compaq, I disassembled several of the critters.

I have run into two viruses that did random byte writes to the hard drive, I
believe one that wrote FF to all sectors and some that killed the partition
and fat tables. While the data was still there, it was usually not
recoverable. Most viruses I've worked with put themselves in the boot code
and there you can do anything you so desire. A few INT 13 calls and you have
a trashed drive.

I used to have a theory that most viruses were written by virus software
companies. Kind of a self creating market. But then after disassembling a
few I found the programming was too good for that to be true. There are some
very talented programmers out there writing viruses. For what reason, I just
don't understand.

On the subject of virus scanners. I've seen several. The one I personally
use is Antivirus Expert. An earlier version was called Anti Virus Pro.

They can be found at www.centralcommand.com or www.antivirusexpert.com

McAffee is basically junk for the last several years. Norton false alarms
way too much for me to ever trust it.

I have been hit by a virus several times. I have never lost a single byte of
data thus far due to a virus and have had nothing but minor annoyances from
them.

When your computer starts acting strange, and reboots don't fix it, do a
virus scan!

later,
Larry E.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Art Fenerty" <fenerty@...>
To: <CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] mcafee self destructed


> Jon:
>
> No virus can really wipe out a harddrive. (thats urban myth), so you
should
> be able to fix the drive. Of, course , with how cheap drives are now, its
> better to buy a new Bigger one anyway.
> As to realtime protection, I just delete any email with attachments
unless
> I expect them. Or run them through a hex-dump first to see if it's a
virus.
> If you see any reference to MAPI, get rid of the file immediately. It
keeps
> me fairly safe. If I screw up, I run housecall right away, it hasn't
failed
> me yet. (fingers crossed).
>
> Art
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jon Anderson" <janders@...>
> To: <CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 7:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] mcafee self destructed
>
>
> > Smoke,
> >
> > Check out http://www.grc.com and do some browsing. Don't know if Norton
> > fixed it's firewall software, but it was rated as very poor by Gibson.
> > Norton and some other firewalls install with a database of programs that
> > are to be granted automatic and unquestioned access to the net. Any
> > trojan program simply has to install itself using any of the
> > preauthorized filenames and it's in business. ZoneAlarm uses some form
> > of checksum protocol to verify a program really is what it's name says
> > it is.
> > GRC has a lot of great info, but the Denial of Service page though
> > lengthy, probably covers what nailed her computer.
> > FWIW, when I first ran across ZoneAlarm (just before finding out I had
> > some sort of virus) and installed it, I was getting a huge amount of
> > port scans. After doing a full fresh reinstall of NT on a brand new HD,
> > and installing ZoneAlarm/Norton right off the bat, I maybe only a couple
> > port scans a day. Could be wrong, but I suspect I might have had some
> > sort of trojan on my system as well as the virus. Hope you can fix her
> > computer without resorting to a new HD like I had to.
> >
> > Jon
> >
> > Addresses:
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> > bill,
> > List Manager
> >
> >
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>
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