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Message-ID: <200403080718.i287IumD003616@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> From: Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu (Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu) Subject: Re: E-Mail viruses On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 01:47:13 +0100, starwars said: > For security reasons, the upgrade installer has been renamed to update.eex > and cannot be executed directly. [insert "this tremendously elegant > solution keeps you safe from viruses, because..." here]. On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 17:54:55 +1300, Nick FitzGerald <nick@...us-l.demon.co.uk> said: > Yes, but to get through to Kurt's users, the malware (or its sender) > has to guess (or know if it is a directed or insider attack, in which > case "protection" is fundamentally harder anyway) the "right" > extension. Limiting ourselves to three-character-only, non-case > sensitive ASCII alphanumerics, that is a one in 3^36 chance. Anything > else will be stopped as "unwanted", so a virus trying to "fake out" > this approach still won't get to the users behind a perimeter > filtering mechanism enforcing this kind of policy... It's not 3^36, which is multiple billions, it's only 36^3, which is 46,656. And only one has to get through to an idiot. Anybody else got a mail server that blocked more than that many Netsky's this weekend alone? Draw the obvious conclusion here... And *that* was why I was dubious as to the real usefulness... -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 226 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.grok.org.uk/pipermail/full-disclosure/attachments/20040308/c32dbcd3/attachment.bin
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