virus article

["Michael T. Brockbank" 70125.240@xxxxxxxx]

Jane,
I'd be interested in the link to the article; we have a bunch of
folks in Schenectady running office 2000.
thanks,
Michael Brockbank

Jane Van Tassel wrote:

>
> As a general rule, I don't pass on virus warnings to whole lists that I
> belong to. Of the many virus warnings I get regularly via e-mail, a
> sizeable proportion are debunked by another of my correspondents a day or
> two later.
>
> But I do find this one credible: it comes from a friend who, in his turn,
> got it from the head of MIS in the company where he works. It claims that
> if Internet Explorer 5.0 (or Office 2000) is even so much as installed on
> your computer, you may be liable to serious virus trouble.
>
> The same correspondent appended a fascinating and thoroughly alarming
> article by James Gleick from "Slate". The article suggests that the gaping
> security holes in Windows result not just from carelessness (this software
> isn't right for networked and internet-linked PCs, but that won't matter
> much and it will make us lots of money), but from deliberate strategic
> decisions. I haven't attached the entire article, but I'll forward it if
> anyone asks privately.
>
> Cheers
> Eric Van Tassel
>
> e-mail: 
>
> >Dear all:
> >
> > Email viruses are now spreading WITHOUT THE USER OPENING ANY ATTACHMENT.
> >
> > Personal computers running Internet Explorer (IE) version 5.0 and/or
> Microsoft Office 2000 are vulnerable to virus attacks using most email
> systems, even if the email recipient opens no attachments. You don't even
> have to use IE; just have it installed with the default security settings.
> >
> > If you have not closed the hole, you can receive viruses (and spread
> them) by viewing or previewing malicious email without opening any
> attachment, or by visiting a malicious web site. The problem is caused by a
> programming bug in an Internet Explorer ActiveX control called
> scriptlet.typelib.
>
> > This is by far the fastest growing virus distribution problem and ripe
> for a large destructive event - at least as large as the ILOVEYOU virus.
> Updating your Norton or Macaffee virus detection software, while important,
> is not an effective solution for this problem. You must also close the
> hole. Please take a precautionary step and run the correction script
> located at the following URL:
> http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/iebuild/scriptlet/en/scriptlet.htm
>
> > Steps:
> >1. Double-click on the above URL.
> >2. Hit the "next" button on the right side of screen.
> >3. Hit "next" again.
> >4. When it asks if you want to run this program from it's current
> location, click "yes".
> >5. When it asks "do you want to install and run..." click "yes"
> >6. It will then ask one more time "Do you want to install this update?"
> Click yes.
> >7. Done!
>
> END

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