Re: Got this - not sure of authenticity. Better safe etc...

[allensd () VNET IBM COM (Sean Allen)]

    The 'Christmas Card' ordeal required a user to actually do
    something besides read the message.  Think of a scenario where a
    UNIX user has a .forward file to another user, who in turn has it
    point right back.  That is essentially what happened, except that
    the user had to "receive" a file and execute it.  For those of us
    who do not get our mail on the mainframes, the "virus" had no
    impact.

On Tue, 6 Dec 1994, Bennett Todd wrote:

> > Yup. Those email viruses are almost as dangerous as artificially
> > intelligent network packets.
>
> Well, I know nothing about this report, but I've heard of a "virus" (more
> like a worm, actually) carried via email: as I recall, IBM's internal
> network (VNET?) was shut down by a christmas card that retransmitted itself
> to everyone in the receipient's phonebook.
>
> AOL has all kinds of cleverness for automagically downloading new versions
> of its own client software, so this virus report didn't strike me as
> intrinsically unbelievable.
>
> -Bennett

Sean Allen                                      AIX/Database Administration
(919)543-6021 Fax 7996                        IBM Personal Computer Company
Internal Zip: D318/B205                    Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
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