From: ChuckKuecker (ckuecker@mcs.net)
Date: Fri May 29 1998 - 19:12:29 MDT
At 04:55 PM 5/29/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Bryan Moss wrote:
>As far as I can tell, any time you put a CD in a drive, or any other
>disk in a drive, the drive checks the boot sector of the drive. This is
>how you can get a virus from an infected floppy simply by sticking the
>disk in the drive. You do not need to 'look at it' in order to give the
>virus a go at your system. Granted you could use a specially rigged CD
>copying machine, but these are expensive devices, not likely to be owned
>by the casual pirate. This cost of entry limits potential pirates to
>those with the capital to take the risk. Thus this limits the potential
>pirates, and eases enfocement.
>
In IBM PC clones (DOS), the boot sector is only read during boot up. No
files are read when the disk is inserted unless you execute one from the
disk. Win 95, etc., I can't speak for.
Windows 95 will attempt to autorun a CD, but this can be turned off in the
OS. I am not certain that you can completely disable the CD's being
autoscanned, but the programs, if any, will not actually be run.
Unless the code containing the virus is actually run, there is no
possibility of infection. By inclusion, this includes macro viruses such as
those now found in MS Word and Excel files..unless the infected file is
opened with the proper program, and the macros are run, there is no danger.
Chuck Kuecker
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