STOP !!! RE: Virus Alert

Subject: STOP !!! RE: Virus Alert
From: Dick Gaskill <dickg -at- AG3D -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 19:05:07 -0700

Well, this "win a holiday" hoax message is hitting just about all the
listserves I'm on. So I'll post this one more time.

STOP. DO NOT FORWARD THE INCLUDED MESSAGE BELOW. If you have forwarded
it already, send them another message with the following information.

WIN A HOLIDAY is a "HOAX virus", a phony email message designed to cause
panic among the inexperienced and less knowledgeable computer and
internet users and hope thay will pass the phony warning message on and
scare others as well. The wording of the email message is almost
exactly the same as the "Penpal Greetings", Join the Crew" and several
other hoax email "viruses". Whoever wrote it was either too dumb or
too lazy to write his own. Sheesh, next they'll be telling us that if
you read the email message it'll cause your mother-in-law to visit for 2
weeks, your tires to go flat, and your hair to fall out. Aint gonna
happen, folks.

An email message is just plain text and it cannot do any harm to your
hard disk except waste a little disk space. Except for the MS Word
macro virus, a virus has to RUN in order to work. In order to run it
must be carried by a PROGRAM and works only if and when you RUN the
program. Even if someone sends you a program with a virus in it
attached to an email message, and even if you save that program to your
hard disk, nothing can happen unless you actually run the program.

Therefore - a real warning, this time - If somebody sends you a PROGRAM
that is attached to an email message, check it with a virus scan program
such as Norton or McAfee before running it unless you personally know
the individual that sent you the message.

FYI, here is a list of commonly known "hoax virus" names from the McAfee
web site (McAfee Corp in Santa Clara CA is a well known manufacturer of
anti-virus software). Note that the list includes "win a holiday")

3b Trojan (alias PKZIP Virus) Hoax
A.I.D.S. Virus Hoax
AOL4Free Hoax
Baby New Year Virus Hoax
Bud Frogs Screen Saver Hoax
BUDDYLST.ZIP Email Hoax
Death69 Hoax
Deeyenda Hoax
E-Flu
FatCat Virus Hoax
Free Money Hoax
Ghost.exe Hoax
Good Times Hoax
Hairy Palms Virus Hoax
Irina Hoax
JOIN THE CREW Hoax
A Moment Of Silence Hoax
Penpal GreetingsHoax
Red Alert Hoax
Returned or Unable to Deliver Hoax
Valentine's Greeting Hoax
Time Bomb Hoax
WIN A HOLIDAY - Email Hoax
World Domination Hoax

HTH
Dick Gaskill


-----begin included message ------- DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE
----------
From: R2 Innovations [SMTP:R2innovations -at- MYNA -dot- COM]
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 1998 1:55 PM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Virus Alert

The IS department where I worked published this alert today
(June 4).

"If you receive an email titled 'Win a Holiday', DO NOT open it.
It
will erase _everything_ on your hard drive. This is a new, very
malicious virus and not many people know about it. This
information
was announced yesterday morning from Microsoft"

Just passing this on so you can take the necessary actions.

Ralph E. Robinson
R2 Innovations





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