You may have noticed that the gap between this posting and the last is a tad on the longish side. This is not due to my taking a vacation, or getting lazy, or forgetting to post. This is due to something inanimate that came crawling out of my email, a set of carefully-crafted electrons that slipped past my laptop's defenses and caused some major inconveniences for its owner (me).
My professional background includes jobs that have left me fairly sensitive to issues of cyber security; the result is that I have better-than-average protections (of various kinds) installed on my laptop, and take better-than-average precautions when adding files to its already-crowded hard drive. However, I was always aware that the law of averages dictated I would eventually discover a chink in my laptop's armor "the hard way" unless I was supernaturally lucky -- which I am not. The frosting on the cupcake (so to speak) was that the longer I avoided a security problem, the more likely I was to experience one.
Well, perhaps I am a bit luckier than average, because when I finally got bitten it was by a common Garter Snake and not a Pit Viper... but I was bitten nonetheless. It happened thusly: I help edit a small neighborhood newspaper, and the latest deadline was looming... and as usual, the articles were trickling in at the last moment. I would normally check each one quickly and individually before opening the file or trying to work on it -- even attachments from friends can accidentally carry a virus or other malware -- but I was in a rush, and wanted to get everything done, so I broke several of my own rules and opened several of the files simultaneously without any advance checks.
Imagine my surprise when I suddenly lost the ability to modify any of the formatting in one of the files. Imagine my annoyance when I subsequently lost the ability to save any of the files in Microsoft Word. Imagine my language when I discovered the problem had spread to include every Word and Excel file I tried opening, regardless of source, size or age.
The individuals waiting for me to finish were sympathetic, but I'm not entirely sure they fully understood what I meant when I described the problem because one of the suggested courses of action was for me to just forward the files to them "as is" via email, or have the original senders send everything to them -- a sure way to guarantee further spread of whatever evil thing crawled out of those files in the first place. To make a long story short, I ran several different scans, deleted a number of files, reinstalled Microsoft Office (twice!), and downloaded a couple of patches for the operating system... and voila, all was once again copacetic after two and a half days of work. In the meantime, the deadline came and went, so I had to re-edit all the articles to ensure there were no mentions of "mark your calendars" or "come join us" for events that had already passed... and I also had to set several important personal projects aside, or delay fulfilling several online requests, until I could once again use the Office applications properly and knew I would not be spreading any malware myself. (The culprit seemed to be a macro routine that somehow slipped through the cracks.)
So now I am waiting to hear if this issue of the newsletter will be published at all... and am pushing to catch up on everything from resume updates to sending out phone lists that are now a week overdue... and looking at a higher credit card balance due to some new software I had to purchase and install. If anything good came out of the situation, it's my renewed awareness of the need to stay vigilant even with "safe" files from "safe" sources, and the presence of new & updated security software on my laptop.
The worst part of the entire situation is that I know the risk counter did not necessarily reset to zero, leaving me safe from malware & other cyber demons for a while; even though the chances of my having a problem steadily increase as time passes, it is just as likely that something evil will try crawling out of my email later today as it is to try several years in the future.
And that, dear reader, is damned annoying.
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