Noncryptographic Security Issues - Codes: The Guide to Secrecy from Ancient to Modern Times - page 401

damages around the globe. 10.28
In October of 2002, the Bugbear virus infected Windows platforms through a
hole in the security system in MS-Outlook, MS-Outlook Express, and Internet
Explorer. Once a machine was infected, the virus copied all passwords and
credit card numbers typed by a user, then it sent the information to numerous
e-mail addresses. It was estimated that in the first week it sent roughly 320,000
e-mail messages. In 2003, the virus appeared in a more virulent strain called
Bugbear.B , which took only one day to cause the damage the previous strain
had caused in three days. The reason was that a flaw in MS-Outlook allowed
the program to automatically open e-mail attachments. The perpetrator of the
Bugbear strains has not been apprehended.
Virus Detection and Prevention
The following steps may be taken to protect and defend yourself from infec-
tion by computer viruses.
1. Check before Use : Before using any floppy disk or downloaded files,
always run a virus-scanner program on them. There are numerous rep-
utable vendors who have relatively inexpensive (or in some cases free),
virus-scanning software available. Moreover, updates will be provided as
a service by the vendor. As we have seen, the race to beat the attacker is
based on knowing what is out there. You should also use the software to
do a virus scan after each reboot of your computer.
2. Create Emergency Disk : For the worst-case scenario where you get
infected and you cannot reboot your machine, the only saviour may be
an emergency disk that you have set in advance to use for that scenario.
Ensure that the disk is write-protected at the time it is created.
3. Disable : Do not allow the enabling of such automatic features as the
opening of e-mail attachments, downloading of files, or the like. Disable
these features.
4. Documents (MS) : Do not open any MS-Word document unless you are
certain it is not infected. Remember not to view these as “data files”,
since they may be infected with a macro virus.
5. E-Mail : Be cautious in the extreme about e-mail that you receive, even if
you know and trust the sender very well, since anyone may be an unwit-
ting victim. The above-described scenarios should be enough to convince
anyone of that. If there is an attachment, especially if it is an executable
file, you must verify that it is virus-free. Delete it if there is doubt, or
if you believe it to be valid and from a valid source, contact that source
before opening it. Ask them what is in the file, whether they know if it is
10.28 The author of the love bug, Onel de Guzman, of the Philippines, was never charged with
a crime. At the time, there were no laws against cybercrime in the Philippines. Although
such laws exist now, he cannot be charged retroactively.