Re: Attachment attack

At 10:55 -0700 2004-07-19, Aron Roberts wrote:
>At 10:16 -0700 2004-07-19, Larry M. Jones wrote:
>>... We are being bombarded with emails with attachments. ... Can
>>CalMail stop this?
>
> This will happen again, and at this point there appears to be
>little that CalMail's administrators or any other email systems'
>administrators can do about this.

   To follow up, from what I understand, CalMail's administrators have
two mechanisms for detecting viruses and worms:

   - Scanning messages via a commercial virus scanning product.

     CalMail automatically checks for and installs virus identification
     updates to this product at very frequent intervals. (Currently,
     CalMail is using an virus scanning product from Sophos.)

   - Scanning messages for text strings.

     This technique has been occasionally used by CalMail's administrators
     on an emergency basis, typically while waiting for vendor updates
     or during large outbreaks.

     For this technique to work, infected messages must contain a
     string uniquely characteristic of a particular virus or worm.
     Encrypted archive files or varying payloads would make this task
     much more challenging ...

Aron Roberts
Workstation Software Support Group

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Received on Mon Jul 19 11:43:46 2004