Value? in not protecting against viruses

[Gary Stoneburner <gary.stoneburner@nist.gov>]

re:
http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/virustax.html

" According to media reports, an accountant from Hoover, Alabama,
has been acquitted of nine counts of tax evasion and filing fraudulent
personal and business state income tax returns after a jury accepted his
story of computer virus attack."

"Pitts accepted that there were errors in the figures on his tax
returns, but blamed an unnamed computer virus for the inaccuracies. State
prosecutors noted that the alleged virus apparently did not affect the
tax returns of clients prepared on the same computer. The jury took three
hours to find Mr Pitts innocent on all charges."

"... it is difficult to describe how it might have affected his tax
returns and not those of his clients. It is certainly curious that only
his records were targeted by the virus," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus."

Apparently no virus was actually found, just the "it must have been
a virus" defense and IT WORKED!!!

Cheers,
Gary

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* Opinions expressed are not intended to reflect an official position
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* Gary Stoneburner
* Computer Security Division, National Institute of Standards & Technology
* 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8930, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8930         
* Phone: 301-975-5394, FAX: 301-948-0279, Email: Stoneburner@nist.gov
* http://csrc.nist.gov/staff/stoneburner/gshome.html
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