Other sources of antiviral information


(maintained by Rob Slade)

The following sites contain various antiviral information. These are primarily World Wide Web (WWW or W3) sites. Although I consider them to be generally reliable, they are run by other people, so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the material.

In addition, please note that W3 sites can be affected by many factors. If you can't reach one, try one of the others. (Many of these sites will be "cross-linked" to each other.) If you have consistent problems with a site, please drop me a line at roberts@decus.ca. Thanks.

There are two Usenet newsgroups dealing with computer viruses. The first, and most reliable is comp.virus, the Usenet news mirror of the VIRUS-L Digest mailing list. (You can also subscribe to VIRUS-L by sending a LISTSERV "subscribe VIRUS-L [Firstname Lastname]" command to listserv@lehigh.edu.) The second group is alt.comp.virus. This group was originally created to share virus code, and there are still occasional virus postings on it, so be careful if you use it. (Note that these links will only work if your browser is set up to access Usenet news, and if your NNTP server carries theese groups.)

A very interesting group discussing topics often related to computer security is comp.risks, mirror of the RISKS-FORUM Digest mailing list.

The most authoritative computer virus reference available online is the VIRUS-L FAQ (list of Frequently Asked Questions. Data Fellows have produced a Web version of the VIRUS-L FAQ.

Another strong source is the NIST Security Resource virus information provided by the US federal government.

Two academic research centres are both in Europe: the University of Tampere Virus Research Unit, and the The Virus Test Center Home Page at the University of Hamburg.

The "Good Times" Hoax gets a bunch of references all on its own. The "Good Times" Virus Warning Is a Hoax. Or a false alarm, or a mistake, or something. Anyways, there is no "Good Times" virus that you can get by reading email messages. (I can't say just "there is no `Good Times' virus," because those helpful vx folks took advantage of the myth/rumour to create a simple, rather stupid, virus that identifies itself as "Good Times". But it is unlikely that you will ever see it.)

Please don't forward the message that warns about "Good Times". We've been trying to kill the rumour since 1994, but people still keep passing it on.

For further information there is the "Good Times" Hoax FAQ, CIAC's note about "Good Times", and yet another copy of the "Good Times" FAQ.

Vendor Web sites can be helpful, but do keep an eye out for bias.

Finally, here are some other related sites.


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