FOOT-AND-MOUTH BELIEVED TO BE FIRST VIRUS UNABLE TO SPREAD THROUGH
MICROSOFT OUTLOOK
Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Symantec’s AntiVirus
Research Center today confirmed that foot-and-mouth disease cannot
be spread by Microsoft’s Outlook email application, believed to
be the first time the program has ever failed to propagate a major
virus.
"Frankly, we’ve never heard of a virus that couldn’t spread
through Microsoft Outlook, so our findings were, to say the least,
unexpected," said Clive Sarnow, director of the CDC’s infectious
disease unit….
Executives at Microsoft, meanwhile, were equally skeptical, insisting
that Outlook’s patented Virus Transfer Protocol (VTP) has proven
virtually pervious to any virus. The company, however, will issue
a free VTP patch if it turns out the application is not vulnerable
to foot-and-mouth.
|