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- I read the following article in PC Magazine and thought it should be of
- interest to all SYSOPS and BBS users :
- "Warning: Someone is trying to destroy your data. Beware the sudden upsurge
- in "Trojan horse" programs on bulletin boards and in the public domain. These
- programs purport to be useful utilities, but, in reality, they are designed to
- sack your system.
- One has shown up as EGABTR, a program that claims to show you how to maximize
- the features of IBM's Enhanced Graphics Adanew super-directory program. It
- actually erases the file allocation tables on your hard disk. For good measure,
- it asks you to put a disk in drive A: then another in drive B:. After it has
- erased those FAT's too, it displays, "Got you! Arf! Arf!".
- Don't run any public-domain program that is not a known quantity. Have some-
- one you know and trust vouch for it. Always examine it first with DEBUG,
- looking at all the ASCII strings and data. If there is anything even slightly
- suspicious about it, do a cursory disassembly. Be wary of disk calls
- (interrupt 13H), especially if the program has no business writing to the disk.
- Run your system in floppy-only mode with write-protect tabs on the disks or
- junk disks in the drives.
- Speaking of Greeks bearing gifts, Aristotle said that the unexamined life is
- not worth living. The unexamined program is not worth running. "
- The Editors of PC
- July edition Vol 4 # 15
- page 33.
- Food for Thought.