Re: VIRUS Alert for the LIST

[John Hall <jhall@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Gibbs wrote:
> 
> At 09:20 AM 12/27/99 , you wrote:
> >The 400 is most definitely vulnerable to a virus.
> 
> While this is true .. the AS/400 is technically vulnerable to a virus ... I
> don't think it's very realistically vulnerable.

 
> Consider:
> 1. Most virus authors are interested in creating massive disruption in the
> computing industry ... with the limited number of AS/400's on the market
> they just aren't a target.

No -  they haven't been a target yet !!  I am not sure as to the
motivation of virus writers but there is or will be at least one person
out there who will try it.

> 2. A virus author would need an AS/400 to write the virus on ...
> considering the cost of a system, just to be a virus test bed, it's pretty
> impractical.

Um... no colleges have AS400's ?  And of course no one has timeshare
AS400's available ?  Of course a person who was trying to write a virus
would NEVER break into another system to test it !!! 

> 3. How many people in the world know enough about the AS/400 to write an
> effective virus?  I really don't think you can write an effective virus in
> RPG ... so in depth knowledge of C and/or MI would be required.  I'll bet a
> majority of the people capable of doing such a feat are on this list :)

Would a virus be effective if it just did a one line CL that did DLTCMD
?

> 4. Most viruses exploit holes in the OS to do their damage ... how many
> holes does OS/400 have?
> 


The holes that would be needed would be in the security implementation. 
Or to put it another way the virus would just have to hang around until
someone with ALLOBJ happened to run the program.

Your point's are valid.  But I am afraid that those situations are only
delaying the inevitable not preventing it.

I hesitate to go into anymore detail but after thinking about it I know
it would be easy to do.
I don't want to publish a handbook on how to write a virus for the 400
:(

John Hall
Home Sales Co.

PS - thanks for putting me in touch with the people at your company - we
now own FileCompare :)
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