Please let me add a few words about virus hoaxes.
Their purpose: the guys who issue the hoaxes are sicker in their minds
than even those who make the viruses. Their idea is to hope that they
will have so many gullible guys sending on their messages to others that
the Internet will becosme so overloaded for several days that it will
fall over. This has happened, to a small extent, in the past.
No e-mail can carry a virus, worm or any other nasty. Only attachments
can do so. Check attachments systematically before opening or executing
them. Most anti-virus software will do this automatically, provided you
up-date them regularly. If the attachment is unsolicited and has any of
the following extensions, be doubly cautious: .com, .exe, .zip, .tar,
.doc, .xls (the latter two for macroviruses).
IBM, Microsoft and others do NOT issue such warnings, so if you see that
the message says that they did so yesterday, it is certainly a hoax and
you can safely ignore/delete it but, ABOVE ALL, do not send it on to
others or the perpetrators aims may be achieved. It could also be said
that messages such as in this thread, even if useful, also help the
perpetrators achieve their aim! :-(
The CIAC site that Jack has linked is extremely useful for both real and
hoaxed viruses.
Brian
Jack Crawford wrote:
>
> Please bookmark http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/ and always check here or at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html before sending on virus messages. Remember that all major companies are very concerned about the damage that viruses can do and are members of professional networks that propagate true virus information.
>
> Following copied from the Symantec (maker of Norton Antivirus) website http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/wobbler-hoax.html
>
> WOBBLER Virus Hoax
>
> Aliases: California
> Known Variants: Hoax
> Infection Length: Hoax
> Area of Infection:
> Hoax Likelihood:
> Hoax Region Reported: email
> Characteristics: Hoax
>
> Description:
>
> The following two messages have been sent out by email. They are both versions of the same hoax. This "virus" does not exist.
>
> The hoax message includes one of the following "warnings":
>
> Dear All,
> For your reference, take necessary precautions. If you receive an email with a file called California, do not open the file. The file contains WOBBLER virus.
>
> WARNING
> This information was announced yesterday morning from IBM; AOL states that this is a very dangerous virus, much worse than "Melissa", and that there is NO remedy for it at this time. Some very sick individual has succeeded in using the reformat function from Norton Utilities causing it to completely erase all documents on the hard drive. It has been designed to work with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. It destroys Macintosh and IBM compatible computers. This is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about it.
>
> Second sample of hoax message "warning":
>
> VIRUS ALERT
>
> If you receive an email with a file called "California" do not open the file. The file contains the virus. This information was announced yesterday morning by IBM.
>
> The report says that "this is a very dangerous virus, much worse than "Melissa" and there is NO remedy for it at this time. Some very sick individual has succeeded in using the reformat function from Norton Utilities causing it to completely erase all documents on the hard drive. It has been designed to work with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. It destroys Macintosh and IBM compatible computers. This is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about it at this time.
>
> Please pass this warning to everyone in your address book and share it with all your online friends asap so that the destruction it can cause may be minimized.
>
> Please ignore any messages regarding this "hoax" and do not pass on any messages regarding it. Passing on messages about this hoax serves only to further propagate it.
>
> Write-up by: Motoaki Yamamura
> Updated: August 26, 1999
>
> >>> "Gabe Cherian" <[log in to unmask]> 11/07/99 04:16PM >>>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mark <[log in to unmask]>
> To: ed larsen <[log in to unmask]>; elaine falkenstein <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>; gabe cherian <[log in to unmask]>; [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>; adam slonim <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sunday, November 07, 1999 8:48 AM
> Subject: virus alert
>
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