Microsoft Virus

[Winfried Tilanus]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2000 09:15:28 -0400 (EDT), Skip Huffman wrote:

>Ok, now go back and read that sentence again.  If there is
>program code in the  DATE AND TIME STAMP!!!  Outlook WILL
>EXECUTE IT!!!  Who on earth programmed this thing????  

It will try to execute code ONLY if the date and time stamp is too long
and therefore causing an buffer overflow.

>Why would anyone do that??  That would be like opening a box of
>nails and finding an unknown power tool in the box and plugging
>it in and turning it on.

The problem is: after the buffer overflow appeared, outlook will
everything that 'had been overflown' as executable code. This means at
least that there is no checking wether the intended parsing of the line
is possible or not, so there can be a buffer overflow. I don't know
what you have to do to make the program execute everything that is
'overflown', but I suppose you need some a VERY bad errorhandling or
worse for it. I still believe this can be programmed by mistake, but it
takes at least 2 very stupid faults to do this.


Best wishes,
Winfried

http://web.inter.NL.net/users/Winfried/