On Wed, 19 Jul 1995, Kari Laine wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know if a utility or application exists that will, transparent
> > tot he user, scan incoming and outgoing e-mail for executables and report
> > viruses to the user and/or system administrator? I have a client that uses
> > the i-net for e-mail only but users often send and receive executables as
> > par of their e-mail. Any leads would be appreciated.
>
> We have implemented a utility to check all the attachment
> files on MS-mail when messages are stored in the mail
> server. This solution uses Dr. Solomon's AVTK but it
> is possible to use other scanners.
>
> Now if you system uses some other mail-system the
> question is - how it stores messages and atttachements?
> If it is possible to access them from dos-level (emulator
> or a machine connected to post server) we probably
> could implement something. Problem is those million
> different encoding systems. Let me know more of your
> setup.
>
Um, what do you do about:
zip files
tar files
gnu zipped files
lzh files?
compressed disk images, in about three formats I can think of offhand....
About 20 other compression formats?
Most files are transmitted compressed, and sometimes the unpacking method
is not obvious. If your goal is to allow your users not to have to think
about viruses when getting mail, I suspect that you will never quite
achieve it.
Your best bet is to educate your users, and if you do scan, don't let
them know, so that they continue to run their own virus checkers and
don't become dependent on yours. The primary responsibility has to be
theirs.
Nick Simicich - njs @
scifi .
emi .
net - (last choice) njs @
bcrvm1 .
vnet .
ibm .
com
http://scifi.emi.net/njs.html -- Stop by and Light Up The World!
References:
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