-=> Quoting The Visionary to Rick Collins <=-
-=> FidoMail to 1:163/215, please.-=<
tv> The MOST IMPORTANT THING to do when you're infected is to BACK UP
tv> EVERYTHING to tape or to a ZiP drive or some other device. DO
tv> NOT immediately remove the virus. You should find out what it
tv> is, and what it does before you remove it.
rc> I can think of no greater waste of time than "backing up"
rc> hundreds of megabytes of possibly infected files. Why on earth
rc> would you do that? 
tv> I support 450 users at work, and I am the sole person in charge
tv> of the virus and anti-virus policy there at the moment. There
tv> are laptops, dial-ups, people on the road, floppies abound, and
tv> I have YET to see one single file get infected -- AT ALL. The
tv> viruses we encounter are all transmitted either via Word
tv> Documents (which I've written some code to eliminate), or
tv> floppies. Most large corporations have problems with virii, but
tv> they're 99.9% of the time boot sector viruses, and not file
tv> infectors. This isn't to say that there aren't file infectors
tv> out there in the business world, but it's rare. 
So - why do the backup _after_ the system has been infected?  Sorry,
but your answer simply doesn't address the question.  I suppose you
could argue that "the files aren't infected" - and I have two
counters to that:  First, you don't _know_ that; and second, backups
should be done on a more reasonable schedule than "whenever we get an
infection."
TTFN. Rick.
Ottawa, ON 26 Dec 17:13 
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