• X-Post OS/2 viri tip from Jack Troughton

    From Mike Luther@1:117/3001 to All on Mon Jun 4 18:55:32 2001
    I propose a crosspost of what I think was a *VERY* informative post by Jack Troughton in an OS/2 Internet forum. Jack spent a lot of time working on this post. I have his permission to post it here. I've encouraged him to check in on my TELNET side of 1:117/3001 to answer questions if he might. He is not a Fido oriented fellow .. but .. there's hope!

    The reason I'm posting this is that it is becoming obvious to me that as we get
    closer and closer to being able to run WIN operations in ODIN and so on,we also
    get closer and closer to the not so nice things that come with it! Yes, we've enjoyed a relative freedom from virus and trojan problems for a long time. But
    although OS/2 is quite removed directly from it, DOS-VDM operations, the newer ODIN, and particularly BBS operations can be VECTORS into our world for problems. The BBS world is interesting in this respect. In that many of us host file areas for WIN as well as DOS, we still have to check our systems for what may be in those platforms. I've found several brought to the 1:117/3000 and 1:117/3001 BBS systems, as well as one that was actually on Bob Juge's COM PORT OS/2, which he promply disposed of. It was in a DOS utility! Mine have showed up in ham radio TNC programs.

    And yes, I've even had to rebuild things on an OS/2 box as a result of, for example Empire B Monkey which I picked up that got to the boot sector of a FAT-16 dual boot box! So it exists.

    I learned a lot about how OS/2 might well become home to more of this,including
    DDOS attacks in the future, and .. knowing what little I do about OS/2 BBS'ing,
    it occurs to me that combining what may be coming that way,with uploads to the BBS which ... mmmmmmmm yes .. You judge for yourself:

    I will post the crosspost in more than one post. It's very long and very well done.

    Mike @ 1:117/3001

    --- Maximus/2 3.01
    * Origin: Ziplog Public Port (1:117/3001)