🚀 go-pugleaf

"Jonathan E. Oberg" <PH461A04@VAX1.UMKC.EDU> asks whether or not new
viruses can still become widespread in the real world, given that
there are lots of detectors out there, and lots of channels by which
information about new viruses can travel.

I'm afraid the answer is probably "yes, definitely", although I'd love
to be wrong!  While the people who read VIRUS-L, and probably all
their friends, are well aware of viruses and how to defend against
them, I think the average machine out there, and possibly still the
average company, is not at all well protected.  The Joshi virus, for
instance, is now quite widespread, but it has not been around that
long; certainly it doesn't date from before we knew about stealthed
boot viruses!  The world still seems to contain a critical mass of
unprotected, sufficiently connected machines, dense enough for viruses
to thrive in.  If a virus gets lucky (gets shipped with 10,000+
pre-configured machines from some random source, say), it's still the
case that it has a very good chance of getting thoroughly embedded in
the populace...

*Boy*, would I like to be wrong this time!   *8)

DC