A futurevariation of this type of virus could potentially affect the Mac. Michael Maggard writes: 'The PolyPoster Word virus is Windows specific - it relies on the Window's Agent or Free Agent newsreading software to do its newsgroup posting.' However, the principle behind the virus does not seem Windows-specific. Update: It appears that Mac users are not vulnerable to this attack. More details are on the Data Fellows web page. As an end result, the virus could post, for example, company confidential data or highly personal material in an open cyber-forum.' The virus activates at random times, and will try to send the user's Word documents to Usenet newsgroups. However, the most disturbing part of the virus is in it's activation routine.
See Usenet, newsgroup, RSS, syndication format and digital newsstand. Graphics-based newsreaders were subsequently developed for Windows and Mac, and newsreader functionality was later incorporated into Web browsers and email programs. Once a machine becomes infected by the virus, all Word documents manipulated in it will become infected and the virus will spread within them to new machines. The newsreaders were command-line Unix utilities such as pine, nn, rn and tin. The new virus uses advanced replication methods to spread within Microsoft Word documents. 'Data Fellows, one of the world's leading data security development companies, has discovered an important new macro virus known as WM/PolyPoster. This one's a bit bizarre (and I am not sure it affects Macs) but here it is (thanks, Monty Solomon):
