Melissa on MacIntosh...

[cmeyer at MIT.EDU (Chris Meyer)]

Scott Prive wrote:
 > I've been wondering when virus/worm authors will get around to crossplatform
 > viruses.

Well, depending on what you mean, there have been some cross-platform viri 
around for a while. There's always Java, which has things like StrangeBrew 
and BeanHive, and reaching waaaay back, the Morris worm (from '88) actually 
recompiled itself separately on each host--which would be a trivial matter 
today on Solaris, Linux, BSD, and other smaller UNIX-like systems since in 
most cases they provide compilers readily accessible to a virus. Plus, as 
pointed out earlier, macro viri are technically platform independant.

Actual executable code capable of running natively on multiple platforms is 
still in the realm of theory, thankfully, but there are viri out there 
capable of running on different platforms given the right set of conditions.

-Chris, finding his copy of "Hack-Proofing Your Network" just did him some 
good ;)

 > It seems the "natural" progression to write something capable of
> replicating to another network OS, using methods appropriate for the target
> platform. It's certainly possible to fuse for example, Code Red with
> Linux.Ramen, or the inevitable Sendmail worm we can expect any day now...
> 
> Not that I look forward to it or anything, but these guys are usually in a
> one-upsmanship race.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steve" <steve at cyberianhamster.com>
> To: <discuss at blu.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 11:18 AM
> Subject: Re: Melissa on MacIntosh...
> 
> 
> 
>>kgleason.ma.ultranet at rcn.com wrote:
>> > I was asked yesterday by a colleague "How do you remove the virus
> 
> Melissa
> 
>> > from a McIntosh computer"? I always thought that Mac's were virus
>>free (or
>> > resistant). This faculty member says she tried Norton's Antivirus with
> 
> no
> 
>> > luck...anyone able to shed light?
>>
>>More like "virus writers get more bang for the buck targeting the much
>>larger Windows crowd". Would be interesting though to see the ratio # of
>>new viruses detected per X time / target computers to see how the
>>platforms fare in the virus department.
>>
>>This is more of a Microsoft office suite virus than a platform specific
>>one. If Linux users had an MS office suite during the Melissa heyday or
>>running something like Win4Lin all the time, they'd have the same
> 
> problems.
> 
>>Steve
>>
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> 
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