full-disclosure - Viral infection via Serial Cable

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From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson)
Subject: Viral infection via Serial Cable

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004, Jean Gruneberg wrote:

> So the question is, is a pc / machine connected to another pc via serial
> cable only using specialised windows software to move data to the machine at
> all vulnerable to viruses?  Can they transmit themselves across a serial
> cable?

You are confusing the different layers.  There is no difference (to a
virus) between a fiber, a cat-5, a serial cable, etc.  These are all
layer-1 choices.

Moving up the stack, the answer to your question is a qualified "yes": if
the serial port is configured as a data transport which the virus can see,
then propagation across it is possible.  And, for the record, there are a
variety of serial-port based LANs.

> Jean

-- 
Yours,

J.A. Terranson
sysadmin@....org
0xBD4A95BF

  "...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do
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