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.
