Re: RC: Kak worm from Cora

[David LeBlanc <dleblanc@mindspring.com>]

At 08:32 AM 5/17/00 -0600, Lif Strand wrote: 
>>>>
> At 09:17 PM 5/16/00 -0700, Katee wrote:
> > There is no block for this worm as yet, it is too new.  
>
> I went to trend.com - seems there are security patches available.  Cora's people might have not explained properly, but McAfee also will have patches for the Kakworm.  My advice:  Don't use Outlook Express!  Lif

Security is what I do for a living - here's what you do:

Open Outlook, choose Tools, Options, then click on the Security tab.  Next, tell it to run your HTML e-mail in the Restricted Sites zone. After that, you need to open Internet Explorer, View, Internet Options, then Security.  Now click on (or pull down  - depends on whether it is IE 4 or 5) the Restricted Sites zone.  Choose Custom, then click on Settings (again, the dialog for IE 4 and 5 are just a little different). Set everything in that zone to disable.

For a nice write-up on all this that explains what is going on, take a look at:

http://www.ntbugtraq.com/default.asp?sid=1&pid=47&aid=56 

Note that you can run into these same problems with other mail readers than Outlook, and if you are using one of these, you probably need to do something similar to what I described above - it will vary with what you have, but I can't help with these - I'm not familiar with them.

This will keep any script-based worm from getting you.  It might also be a good idea to go to http://www.officeupdate.com/ and see if you need any updates or patches. http://www.windowsupdate.com can help with any updates you might want for Windows or Internet Explorer.  If you're running Netscape, go to their site to see what patches they might have.

Now that you've got everything nice and secure, the biggest thing you need to do to keep yourself that way is to not run any attachments that you aren't expecting - especially not any programs.  I don't care how well I know the person, I don't run programs people send me in e-mail.  There's a nasty little hacker tool called cellophane that lets them stuff one program inside another, so while you're watching the dancing bunnies, it is installing something nasty that broadcasts that you've been hacked to whoever wants to come and cause you trouble (I'm not making this up).  Pictures and things like that are generally OK, but do be careful.

It is also a good idea to buy an anti-virus software from the vendor of your choice, run it, and keep it updated because new ones come along all the time.



David LeBlanc
dleblanc@mindspring.com