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From: pc2d+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Philip Edward Cutone, III)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: ways to circumvent viri attack, maybe
Message-ID: <0004.9011291846.AA10418@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 90 18:10:07 GMT
Sender: Virus Discussion List <VIRUS-L@LEHIIBM1>
Lines: 26
Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu

Just a thought,

   What kind of impact would say, renaming com and exe files to
something else while not being used.  Then at least viri that scan the
disk looking for those files to infect would find no hosts in which to
reside.  I used a somwhat simmilar method that had the added advantage
of "increasing" my disk space.  All programs were zipped when not in
use.  When needed, I ran a program that would unzip them into a temp
directory and run a file called "go.bat" that would just run the
program. (or set up directories, whatever would be needed) As far as I
know, no viri infect zips, (boy I hope I am not giving any nasty
projects for these jerks) and any program run will be deleted after
its use, keeping the original copy untouched.  And data files would
also be stored in a zip file automatically by go.bat when finished.
Of course, the zipped files should be cleaned to begin with, otherwise
memory resident viri could affect other programs operation with
unpredictable results.

Anyone see problems with this method?

(other than speed of execution, since it needs to be uncompressed)

Philip Cutone
pc2d@andrew.cmu.edu
cutone@slave.psc.edu
cutone@cpwscb.psc.edu