Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mailrus!bbn!bbn.com!levin
From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: WDEF virus:  Am I immune?
Message-ID: <49764@bbn.COM>
Date: 15 Dec 89 14:55:39 GMT
References: <4249@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <1989Dec15.131728.6126@zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: levin@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin)
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In article <1989Dec15.131728.6126@zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu> edgar@shape.mps.ohio-state.edu (Gerald Edgar) writes:
|>If the WDEF virus moves from disk to disk in Desktop files, then isn't using
|>the Desktop Manager effectively giving me a vaccination for any attempt
|>at spreading the WDEF virus?
|
|I use the Desktop Manager on my hard disk.  WDEF got into the Desktop file
|there somehow.  I eradicated it, and it was back a day later!  How it
|works, I don't know.  Perhaps this disk cannot spread it to others?
|
|NEW QUESTION:  Does WDEF infect DesktopDB and DesktopDF?  They don't have
|resources, so you cannot read them with ResEdit.

The virus infects the Desktop file on any mounted drive (with the
exception of some mounted via TOPS).  If a client running the Desktop
Manager mounts the volume, WDEF will not be able to spread to or from
the server, since WDEF does not deal in any way with DesktopDB and
DesktopDF.  However, any client NOT using the Desktop Manger who
mounts the volume can either infect the server if it is not already,
or catch the WDEF virus from the server.

	/JBL
=
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