One Response to “Hate the virus emails. Will they ever stop?”

1. mistergato on January 23rd, 2008 11:33 pm
   

   It does seem like something that should have been fixed by now.

   However, the problem seems to lay in the packing of the data (and later unpacking). Both Malware and Goodware can travel into your home user PC in a packaged executable code, but the balance is 80/20 for Malware so theoretically these type of executables should be blocked and scanned on entry?

   The problem is that the antivirus programs would have to be designed so that each runtime packer (compressed software) would need to be unpacked and the code screened everytime a e.g. Email was fetched into Outlook or iMac mail which would make many operations slow and cumbersome.

   It is said also that this unpacking and packing can take place earlier in the net at a gateway so perhaps that would save us the bother.

   I have spent about 6 years with no Antivirus installed (on home PC or laptop) but I have also refused to use MSN or Outlook. Result: I have been 100% web based and had zero infections. Goes to show that the problem does lay in those exec files at user end.

   I have used a free download – to keep my workstation clean – called Adaware, that can be found at http://www.lavasoft.com

   Its my 5 cents, and I understand that its winning the battle by staying out of it, but so far so good. Not practical in th long run though, so I hope the antivirus guys can solve it asap.