MacFormat 1995 April/macformat-023.iso/Disinfectant/Disinfectant.rsrc/STR#_208.txt

Text File | 1994-04-02 | 5.7 KB | 241 lines







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åRecommendations





There is no need to panic over the current virus situation. However, you

should take the problem seriously. Using Disinfectant, it only takes a few

minutes per week to effectively protect your Macintosh against the known

viruses.



• If you do nothing else, religiously use the Disinfectant INIT or

Gatekeeper. They only take a minute to install and they can save you much

grief.



• Keep original software on locked floppies. Use copies. When you obtain a

new piece of software, immediately lock the disk on which it came, make

a copy, and use the copy. Never unlock the original disk. It is impossible

for a virus to infect files on a locked floppy.



• Make periodic backups of your hard drive, at least once per week.



• Keep your anti-viral software up-to-date. This is very important. Old

versions of anti-viral software are very often ineffective against new

viruses. This is particularly true of Disinfectant, which only protects

against known viruses and makes no attempt to detect new viruses. If you

do not have access to a reliable source of information about new

Disinfectant releases, we recommend that you use a commercial

anti-viral product instead of Disinfectant. Purchase a product which

offers an update service.



For most people, this is all you have to do to protect your personal

Macintosh. It is not necessary to scan all new software before using it or

to scan all floppy disks before using them. This is a waste of time. As long

as you have the INIT properly installed, it will detect and block viruses

before they can spread or cause any damage.



It is also not necessary to scan your hard drives frequently. Let the

protection INIT do its job and trust it.



You should, however, periodically do a full scan of all your hard drives

just to make certain that they are still uninfected. For example, if you

start up from a floppy disk which does not have the Disinfectant INIT

installed, it is possible for a virus to infect your hard drives. Doing a scan

every once in a while will detect any such infections.



One strategy which many people use is to do a full scan just before every

backup. This has the added advantage that it makes certain your backups

are clean.





The remaining recommendations are for people who manage Mac

networks, Mac laboratories, Mac bulletin boards, or collections of public

domain and shareware software. An environment where many people

share Macs, or share a Mac network, is a perfect breeding ground for

viruses. People who sell software also have a special responsibility to

make certain that their software is free from infection.



• Install the Disinfectant protection INIT or Gatekeeper on all your lab

startup disks.





• Check all your lab disks frequently with Disinfectant to make certain

that they are uninfected. Also check to make certain that the Disinfectant

protection INIT or Gatekeeper is still installed and active on all your

startup disks. We have discovered that students love to play with the

start-up disks.



• Educate the people in your organization about viruses and how to protect

against them. Give them copies of Disinfectant and teach them how to use

the application. Distribute printed copies of the Disinfectant manual.



• Consider creating a special “virus scanning station” in your lab. See

the section about the Preferences window for details.



• Try to put software in write-protected folders on AppleShare server

disks. Viruses cannot infect applications if they are in folders which do

not have the “Make Changes” privilege. On the other hand, if an

application is in a writable server folder, any infected Mac on the

network which accesses the disk and uses the application might spread the

infection to the application on the server. If it is a popular application, it

will in turn quickly infect any other Macs on the network which are not

protected by a protection INIT. This is one way in which viruses can

spread very rapidly. Since some applications insist on writing to their

own file or folder, it is not always possible to put applications in

write-protected folders, but you should make every attempt to do this

when it is possible.



• Check server disks frequently with Disinfectant to make certain they

are uninfected. For best results, you should take the server out of

production and restart it using your Virus Tools or Disk Tools disk. This is

the only way to guarantee that Disinfectant will be able to scan all the

files on the server disk. At Northwestern, we try to check all our

servers once per week. For more details on scanning servers, see the

discussion in the “Special Features” section.



• Check all new software with Disinfectant before installing it on a

server.



• Back up your servers frequently. Run Disinfectant just before each

backup.



• The WDEF virus can cause serious performance problems if it infects an

AppleShare server. To avoid these problems, administrators should never

grant the “make changes” privilege on server root directories. We also

recommend deleting the Desktop file if it exists. See the section about the

WDEF virus for details.



• Bulletin board operators and other people who maintain and distribute

public domain and shareware software have a special responsibility to the

Mac community. Please carefully test all new software before

distributing it. You should also, of course, run Disinfectant on all new

software you receive.



• If you sell software, please check your master disks for infections

before sending them out to be duplicated and distributed.