"Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> writes: {...snip...} Seriously, has anyone ever successfully developed a virus for a VMS system? I think I heard that there was a yearly contest to see if anyone could compromise a VMS system and it failed every year. A few (2-3) years ago, there was a reported security elevation exploit that involves a stupid buffer contamination exploit in SMG$READ_COMPOSED_LINE and any VMS utility that employed it and that was installed with privileges. It turned out that the INSTALL utility could be exploited. It was NOT simple to do but it could be done. I implemented a weaponized PoC to exploit the security vulnerabity. It was, happily, quickly addressed. There was also another exploit wherein one could send, via VMS mail, the equivalent of an attachment using /FOREIGN. If the attachment was created with SUBMIT-ON-CLOSE and the file was read by a privileged user, all bets were off. Again, this was quickly subdued before it became a widespread exploit. That, IIRC, was about a decade ago. Not a bad record at one vulnerability per decade. ;) The only real success stories of infiltrating VMS all stemmed from social engineering and not, to my knowledge, from security holes in the OS. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.