Xander Teunissen to Dan Schrader: > > While we are discussing Hotmail, has anyone noticed that Hotmail's > > virus scanner doesn't detect most macro viruses - including any of > > the Melissa varients? > > This article (published on Techweb last friday) notes that problem yes. > It's not much of a solution (none at all, come to think of it) but it shows > yet another of the problems this service is dealing with and exposing it's > users to. > > http://techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19991015S0016 A response I posted to Dan Schrader's original comment (above) a few days back did not make the cut for posting to the list. It made the same point as that news story -- that Hotmail is using an "old" version of its chosen antivirus software that is known to have difficulties with common, "new" macro viruses ("new" that is, if you count almost all new viruses in more than the last twelve moonths as "new"). The article is also interesting because of this claim: Anti-virus experts at Star Internet said they urged Hotmail to fix the problem after Hotmail became the biggest source of macro viruses in their business customers' networks. Now, what does this really say? It seems that Start Internet (and its customers?) holds Hotmail responsible for the *content* of the Email Hotmail's customers send. It also suggests that Star Internet's own Email scanning technology is far from adequate if Hotmail really was "the biggest source of macro viruses in their [Star's] business customers' networks". Oh yes, a final note -- to see how much Star Internet is really interested in its customers security, visit their web site (http://www.star.co.uk/) with IE and watch for the ActiveX warning... Regards, Nick FitzGerald
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 15:08:50 PDT