Jon Porter was kind enough to send me this information a while back,
and I apologize for forwarding it to the list after such a lapse of
time. Thank you, Jon!
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There are programs being made available on the Internet and numerous
bill-boards purporting to be a new version of the popular PKZ
compression software. The files are found with the names pkz300.exe
and pkz300b.zip. An alert message has stated that PKZ Corp. verified that
it has distributed no programs with such filenames.
The files are reported to be trojan-horse types. That is, they are
self-extracting and, when run, will damage your system in some
manner. In this particular case, they are said to destroy all files on the
hard disk drive.
ALSO:
HotJava is a relatively new computer application capable of producing
some impressive effects, and it can be browsed by Netscape 2.0 and 2.1. It
works by downloading small programs called "applets" that run on your
computer and so act in conjunction with the programs operating in the
site you are visiting.
Applets can be programed to do anything on your machine that you yourself
can do, such as changing passwords, unloading files in the background, and
reformatting your C: drive. A verification program was built into the
newer Netscape programs to examine incoming applets and reject those
that did not conform to standard applications, but this program has been
found to be defective.
This means that a java site might automatically download one or
more applets to your machine that would function as viruses. It is
suggested that, if you are using netscape 2.0 or 2.1, that you should click
on "options," chose "security preferences," choose "general," and place a
checkmark beside "disable java."
Netscape will shortly be distributing a patch to correct this weakness, but
it would be well to keep Java disabled until you have installed
this correction.
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George Ferzoco
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