Why Mail?

Just like biological viruses, you would not have had any reason to be concerned or even know about their existence unless your Macs were exposed to infected ones. That explains the reason they were first discovered in university settings as Mr Reed mentioned.

Since networked Macs were rare even in those environments, how were these viruses propagated...?

Since networked Macs were rare even in those environments, how were these viruses propagated...?

Mostly on floppies. WDEF was pretty smart, actually... it infected the desktop file, which was loaded every time a disk was mounted. That helped it to spread. Its code would execute when an infected floppy was inserted, and it would copy itself to any other disks that were available.

Unfortunately for WDEF, Disinfectant was free and in pretty common use in high-risk places like universities, and it blocked WDEF pretty effectively. Plus the desktop file was an unstable place to store malicious code. So it really didn't get around as much as it could have.

Thomas A Reed wrote:

Since networked Macs were rare even in those environments, how were these viruses propagated...?

Mostly on floppies.

a/k/a "sneakernet"

Glad to help. Keep the blue side up.

f16smoke

there is no reason, I find the cloud or web a valuable source for maintiaining my information via internet, phone or remote location.....

however, I somewhat use my mail accounts or clients as backup sources when I am at a break or transition point. I find that even after the project is done or client is completed I can have copies off line oir stored in my email account on a laptop or whatever.....

call it a second line of support in the event the cloud looses my info