RE: [ISN] MS Outlook booted off campus

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Tue May 28 2002 - 01:30:08 PDT

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    Forwarded from: security curmudgeon <jerichoat_private>
    To: David.Wallat_private
    cc: isnat_private
    
    > Forwarded from: Wall David Civ AETC/DOXD <David.Wallat_private>
    > 
    > Is it just me, or is somebody burying their heads in the sand?  
    > Whatever happened to maintaining the latest antiviral signature
    > files so you don't get hit in the first place?
    > 
    > Am I missing something here?????
    
    Yep.
    
    You are missing that the anti-virus industry is a 99.9% re-active
    industry. They write signatures shortly after the virus hits people.
    Even with a large number of anti-virus users updating sigs on a daily
    (even hourly basis), it leaves a hundred million+ that use no
    anti-virus at all. Several anti-virus packages ship with Heuristic
    scanning off by default even, making it that much harder to guard
    against viruses that are new.
    
    The obvious reason is that if the anti-virus packages were pro-active
    and stopped viruses before mass infection, they wouldn't get their
    monthly/yearly subscription fees for signatures, and their revenue
    stream would take a big hit.
    
    By eliminating software that is a target of viruses and worms, it is a
    pro-active measure to help stop the problem. Compare the various
    windows based worms/viruses with worms that target unix
    vulnerabilities.
    
    
    
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