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From: F8DY@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: Is virus infection by inserting floppy disk possible? (PC) (Mac)
Message-ID: <0015.9104171702.AA08284@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 91 03:24:00 GMT
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Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu

mike@pyrite.SOM.CWRU.Edu (Michael Kerner) writes:
> That's what WDEF viruses do on the Macintosh - they transfer from the
> "desktop" file of the infected floppy to the host.  However, they are
> also extremely easy to kill, and don't do any real damage, so they are
> not (yet) seen as a big threat.

It may be easy to kill (rebuild your desktop!) but it also spreads
like wildfire.  And it certainly does do "real damage" -- where I
work, people have lost papers because WDEF crashed their system and
corrupted their files.  It causes printing problems, it crashes a Mac
II almost immediately, and God help you if you get it on a server!

In reply to the original question, CDEF (Mac) also works like this:
infecting the desktop file, usually on disk insertion.  And since it
was written at Ithaca High School, it is _all_over_ Cornell.  (Lucky
us.)


              _____________________________________________
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     \_____|  is the WAR ROOM! |//     \\|   f8dy@cornella.  |_____/
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 My thoughts may not be my own, but they're certainly not my employer's.