Jerry,

Good points all.

> Your   proposed   virus  would  actually  have  to  execute  on  the
> (supposedly  secure)  mail  server,  and  in a context that it could
> actually  change  the registry. If an admin allows anything close to
> that  scenario,  he  has  more  problems  than potentially passing a
> virus.

I'd  say the problem is an *owned* server that now has an ridiculously
easy  way  to cover its tracks as far as leaving bombs behind. I agree
that  remote  compromise  could be disastrous on many more fronts than
just  this  one,  but I do think this is a substantive problem anyway.
And  you  wouldn't need to breach the mail server interactively--you'd
just  need  to  have  hacked  an  Admin username and be on any machine
behind the firewall.

> I would imagine that fpcmd.exe (the 32 bit console command line version)
> included with the Win version of F-Prot would function OK.  It's also not a
> problem with the on-access stuff, or the Windows GUI on-demand scanner.  IOW,
> it's not an F-Prot problem.

Very, very good point. This should be a warning to all that they could
spring for a teensy bit more $ and get fpcmd.exe.

> Problem is most are using the "DOS" F-Prot.exe with Declude, as fpcmd is
> relatively new.

That is the problem, indeed.

> Turning off SFNs should never be done until a full audit of everything that
> will be run on a box is done.

I did give a caveat in this regard, but admittedly I didn't think that
anything within Imail and its environs would be problematic!

> Even some "32bit" stuff will break.

On  my dedicated boxes and those with CF, nothing appears to have gone
awry  (I've  had  8.3  turned off for years), but people should give a
second look.

> A busy mail server is one of the few applications it could make a real
> difference though, but I still prefer for programs to stick to 8.3 wherever
> possible.

Me too.

> They were currently only using hex based numbering for the filename,
> I  would  have  gone  to  base36  numbering  before  moving past 8.3
> conventions.

I  was  thinking  that  exact  thing,  which  is  why I offered up the
possibility  that  SMTP32  might have reason to parse the 16-character
filename at some point in the future. This would, of course, break the
entire system, since F-Prot can't rebuild the LFN when it's done.

Sandy


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