Re: Alien virus [Ref:C841195]

[d r <writeagain -at- JUNO -dot- COM>]

I am not understanding this. Do you need to download something with a
macros in it. I don't use macros, but I have had problems with viruses in
the past that make me more suspicious of everything. With my new Windows
environment, there are things (files) on there that I have never heard of
so it is more difficult for me to figure out what should be there and
what shouldn't.

Before Windows, on a 386 is where I had a problem. A virus was downloaded
into my computer but (and in those days I was familiar with every DOS
file on it) it wasn't detected by me at first. It stayed there for about
2 weeks. All that I noticed was that I was losing megs and within a week
was down from 20 to 5 with no work done on the computer. Finally a hacker
warned me to look and sure enough there was this file named AL. It wasn't
an .exe file, and at the time I couldn't get any of the anti-virus
companies to even look at it. They were afraid of it.

So although I don't think about it too much these days, when I read
something about a  virus that begins with an A I get nervous.

D.R.
On Fri, 17 Jan 1997 16:43:59 +0000 Tom Tomasovic
<Tom -dot- Tomasovic -at- NA -dot- NWMARKETS -dot- COM> writes:
>          Have not seen this, but it sounds suspiciously
>          like a variation of the Word Concept Virus.  Since
>          the macros are "normal", i.e., they LOOK
>          legitimate, the virus scanners may not recognize
>          them as malicious (I know in the case of the
>          original Concept Virus, several wierdly named
>          macros were a tipoff, and I am certain that is how
>          the virus scanners identified this one.)  The
>          virus scanners out there are getting better at
>          this, but these little "pains in the a--" are real
>          easy to create.  They are mostly just that (like
>          the common cold), but they travel VERY rapidly,
>          and are really annoying.
>
>          Good luck.
>
>          Regards,
>
>          Tom <<Tom -dot- Tomasovic -at- na -dot- nwmarkets -dot- com>>
>
>          You should be aware that the information contained
>          within this message is solely the opinion of the
>          writer (me).  The people at NatWest have little
>          control over how I express myself, and they should
>          not be held responsible for anything I say
>          (unless, of course, I express it as a corporate
>          opinion).
>
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator
>_________________________________
>Subject: Alien virus  [Ref:C841195]
>Author:  INTERNET TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU at Multimessage
>Date:    1/17/97 1:50 AM
>
>
>For the last week, about once or twice a day, when I open a document
>in MS
>Word, a little dialog appears with "Alien" in the title bar. It
>display a
>new message each time, such as:
>
>Never trust an alien.
>Hip Hip Hooray for the Alien.
>The Alien lives.
>
>I also believe there are three new macros in my Word documents called
>AutoClose, AutoOpen, and FileSaveAs.
>
>So far, no virus scan that we have tried detects this as a virus.
>
> Anyone else seen this?
>
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