[plug] Mozilla Mail and virus

[Mike Holland]

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Leon Brooks wrote:

> So the same piece of software (say, Nimda) might be a virus or a worm 
> depending on its mode of propagation at the instant?

Ummm, yes. How accurate are the following predicates?

- The definitive case of a worm was the 1988 Morris Jr. worm.
  Worms propagate across a network without user intervention.

- "virus" used to refer (by a logical analogy) to code thant embedded 
itself in other programs. It spead as people swapped programs, by floppy 
or BBS. When they run the host program, the virus also runs and copies 
itself to other programs on the same host. The virus isnt a stand-alone 
program.

- These days, clueless journos use "virus" for a whole buch of things 
which dont fit the viral analogy, so the word doesnt mean much anymore.

- Many recent "viruses" would be better described as trojans - ie programs 
that a user is tricked into running. They may propagate by e-mail.


And as a supplementary question, wrt the slammer worm: why all the talk 
about sysadmins not patching their SQL servers? Surely the lack of 
firewalling is a much more important issue? Why should any SQL server be 
exposed to the internet? (or even a large LAN, as in the case of a 
well-known Redmond company)

P.S. hope you like the new sig.

-- 
You ain't seen nothing yet.  - Miguel de Cervantes