Well wholy geez, these virus warnings are almost weekly as of late, and it
is getting rather bothersome for many (those who get it, and those who
don't).
You hear one, and you run to your A/V vendor site to grab the latest
software fix that will keep your A/V up-to-date and find this gremlin that
scours the earth before it arrives, only to find that you are about 1 in 10
gazillion users who use that product and it takes hours to connect properly
to protect yourself. Ain't that a bitch... and a half? If you are super
conscious about it, you might go so far as to shut the system down until a
vaccine can be had from that vendor when things calm down a bit.
Chances are, you are not alone.
In fact... I stopped using ANY ongoing A/V a couple months ago. It wreaps
havoc on the games when it's running, and you feel your heart drop when ya
turn it off, or else you are totally put-out by the fact that you have to
remember to turn it back on when you're finished so that the wife doesn't
nab yet another virus infested joke her co-worker sent her unknowingly.
So, I did some investigation a while back, and some backtracking over at
Trend Virus (THE source for virus info I might add, and the best damn A/V
that's out there today... Norton's worse than the viruses themselves
IMHOAE). www.trend.com
Turns out a strange fact came of all of this. Did you know that most viruses
are written in VBscript? To most this may seem irrelevant, and to C/C++
programmers they will probably proclaim "lazy idiots, figures those scurge
would use such a bloated codebase...).
The moral of the story is that you can protect yourself against these little
gremlins quite easily, and without A/V and the BRUTAL wait times for a
vaccine they require (not to mention the nasty performance hits you seem to
always experience).
VBScript is a file format. Under basic windows install (ALL forms), a small
program is referenced to run them (it transcends all mail progs., etc.). It
is called "WSCRIPT.EXE". In fact, you can check this by checking "Windows
Explorer (All OSs)>Tools>Folder Options>File Types (TAB)" Scroll to: VBS/VBE
file formats. There ya have it: wscript.exe
Here is the trick:
Change all commands for that file type (normally just "Open") to:
notepad.exe
voila... the system no longer "opens natively" those VBS files that are so
commonly viruses and not much more else online. The command has been changed
to "edit".
Those who know that .ASP is written in VBscript, should be reminded that the
VBscript in ASP is "server based" so it will not be affected in anyway the
viewing on the client's machine.
However, I do not suggest using this technique on any servers you may have
that process ASP. It WILL cause problems there for sure.
Anyways, did that a while ago, haven't had a mail/other virus since (I still
have Trend A/V installed to check periodically... but it runs on demand, not
always on). I've had my UltraEdit pop up a few times though (means that I
mapped the more powerful text/Hex/Code editor to the VBS/VBE file formats
and it has been called upon to open up those nasty gremlins in their native
format [notepad will do the same]). So I then was able to contact those who
unknowingly sent me the virus, to take immediate actions.
Anyways... not a substitute for A/V... but a nice backfall in times of
forgetfullness after a tough night of racing online.... can't have ya losing
those million-dollar setups now :)
Cheers,
Schumi
