[Groop] Re: "Hi" Virus

[Scott]

There are a few virus infections that will disable Norton [quick, look at your
task bar and see if there is a red X on your norton icon(s) or if your control
panel says "disabled"] and if the virus gets active, can hide from virus
detectors as they look for certain things. Other viruses have attacked Norton
files to disable them including the firewall. I would bet there are some that
disable or hide from McAfee as well. In theory, the anti-virus program also
checks memory as well.

Sage with computer chips in my bottle


Monday, January 19, 2004, 5:46:39 PM, you wrote:

> Thanks Mark, Scott, Azamin, and everyone else for all of your help and
> suggestions.

> The oddest thing to me is that I cannot find any sign that my computer was
> ever infected!  I've run several different scans and they all come up empty.
> The only way I know I had the virus is that everyone else, including me,
> received the infected message from me as a Groop member.  But it didn't
> reinfect me.

> So the only thing I can figure is that I got it before McAfee figured it
> out, then three minutes later it sent the infected messages to everyone,
> then shortly thereafter, McAfee figured it out, sent an automatic update and
> cleaned out my system.

> Is that possible?    -Gary G.



> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Evanier" <mail at evanier.com>
> To: <groop at groo.com>
> Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 12:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [Groop] Re: "Hi" Virus


> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:26:45 -0800, "Gary Grossmann"
> <grossfam at olywa.net> wrote:

>>Would Mark or some other virus expert please explain to me what happened?
>>
>>I did not open anything.  I left my Outlook Express open overnight by
>>mistake.  So the mail arrives in the middle of the night and three minutes
>>after it arrived, without me doing anything, it had sent mail out to the
>>Groop and lord knows who else.
>>
>>Then I ran a virus scan with MacAfee and it doesn't find the
>>W32.Beagle.A at mm in my system.
>>
>>I don't get it.  I don't know what I should do.  I don't understand the
>>instructions at the sight Mark gave because they don't seem to apply to
>>MacAfee systems.   Please someone tell me what I need to do.  -Gary G.

> ME: First off, here's the page from McAfee on this virus...

> http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=description&virus_k=100965

> I don't know how you could have become infected since it seems like
> you have to open it for it to infect you.  Perhaps you have your
> Outlook Express set to do some kind of preview whereby it
> automatically opens incoming messages.

> I don't use Outlook Express and this is one of the reasons.  I use an
> e-mail program called Agent that is so obscure that no one ever
> bothers writing virus programs that utilize it to spread the virus.  I
> have Outlook Express on my computer since Windows XP does not allow
> you to uninstall it but I don't have to configured to send messages so
> if the virus had infected me, it would just have put the outgoing
> contaminated messages into OE and they would have remained there.

> The virus-checking program I use is Norton, which caught the virus on
> your message.  I'm not saying Norton is better than McAfee because
> some day, there will probably be one it will miss that McAfee would
> catch.  But my computer expert friend prefers Norton...and he used to
> work for McAfee.  (I had McAfee and changed on his advice.)

> I don't know why McAfee didn't catch it on yours unless your virus
> definitions file is old.  When did you last download an update?  If it
> was long ago, that's probably the reason.  Run an update and scan
> again.

> We explained all this at the Groo Panel at last year's San Diego Con.
> Too bad you weren't there.
> ----------------------------------------------------
> www.newsfromme.com (Mark Evanier's daily weblog)
> www.POVonline.com (Mark Evanier's not-daily website)

> _______________________________________________
> Groop mailing list
> Groop at groo.com
> http://mailman.newdream.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/groop

> _______________________________________________
> Groop mailing list
> Groop at groo.com
> http://mailman.newdream.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/groop