Point of view regarding LISA 2002

Anthony E. Greene agreene@pobox.com
Wed Oct 2 15:45:02 2002


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On 01-Oct-2002/21:20 +0200, markus_kampkoetter <markus_kampkoetter@t-online.de> wrote:
>
>WHEN RUN! apart from m$outlook, which mua allows attachments to be run
>without asking the user?
[snip]
>nice hack, so we have to take a close look at the key if an executable is
>attached and not run executables until we asked the "original" sender to
>confirm "his" action. seems to be easy to avoid this kind of attack
>(because hardly anybody will run executables that they do not expect in
>advance) - too easy....?

You pointed out the two biggest weaknesses in my hack. The current Linux
population is not a good target for this kind of attack. I just described
one scenario just to point out that encryption and signatures are not
necessarily a cure for worms and viruses. Human factors combined with
current interface limitations can still allow a worm to propagate.

Tony
- -- 
Anthony E. Greene <mailto:agreene@pobox.com>
OpenPGP Key: 0x6C94239D/7B3D BD7D 7D91 1B44 BA26  C484 A42A 60DD 6C94 239D
AOL/Yahoo Chat: TonyG05      HomePage: <http://www.pobox.com/~agreene/>
Linux: the choice of a GNU Generation. <http://www.linux.org/>

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