[LINK] Now we know just who is stupid

[Rick Welykochy]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004, Rick Welykochy wrote:

> > Two-thirds of the 1,000 people quizzed by market researchers TNS in 
> > January admit they are not aware of even the most basic virus 
> > prevention measures. Meanwhile a third of those polled in the 
> > Novell-sponsored study said they are too busy to check their emails 
> > before opening them.
> 
> If it costs these companies $ MILLIONS to cleanup after a virus attack, and
> these virus attacks are occurring in the big at least twice a year, it would
> make sense to change email clients. If these companies were running other
> client or server software that cost them $ MILLIONS every year unecessarily,
> what would they do ... probably dump the software.
> 
> Seems that the stupid are those managing worker's desktops
> and providing them with the very software that allows the problem to occur,
> namely Microsoft Outlook. Switching to another email reader would obliterate
> the need to spend $ MILLIONS on virus cleanup.
> 
> Ask anyone on LINK who does not use MS Outlook: have they ever suffered a
> virus attack by email? Resounding answer, in unison: No!
> 
> Now, who is stupid?


On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Daniel Rose wrote:

> While I agree with you, the fact remains that Mydoom would have performed in
> exactly the same way under any windows mail client, it's an executable
> attachment, no outlook security holes were used.

Perhaps the problem lies in the way MS Outlook offers up the link
to the attached virus: if you click on it, it executes. I don't believe
other email readers like those provided by Eudora, Netscape, Mozilla,
and the shell email readers, would make it so easy and painless to execute
an attachement.


cheers
rickw


---------------------------------------------
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services Pty Limited

This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future,
which is a little ironic since we may not have one.
     -- Arthur C Clarke