[20582] in APO-L
Re: Fw: Virus Warning: This is -- ANOTHER HOAX
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Cashman)
Wed May 5 11:11:50 1999
Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 08:12:13 -0700
Reply-To: Derek Cashman <cashman@YAHOO.COM>
From: Derek Cashman <cashman@YAHOO.COM>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Upon visiting IBM's internet site, I came across the
following page, clearly indicating that this warning
is yet another infamous virus warning hoax. Please,
before hitting the, "forward," button, review your
sources. If big-name companies like IBM and AOL are
mentioned in the so-called virus-warning, it doesn't
take a long time to visit their web site and do a
quick search for any virus warning messages.
The URL of IBM's reaction to this is as follows:
http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/HypeAlert/Guts/
The actual text from the page is below, including a
lot of useful tips for recognizing virus hoaxes:
Another VIRUS WARNING !!!!!!! hoax message has found
its way into the netstream, this one containing quite
a few of the common hoax characteristics. Using hoax
heuristics (rules to help determine if a message has
characteristics making it likely to be a hoax), you
can learn to recognize Virus Hoaxes.
The characteristics which appear in this message are
many. One of them, the request to forward the message
to everyone you can, even appears four times.
First, there is the almost obligatory warning to not
open mail with a specific Subject: line. In this case,
the Subject line is:
"It Takes Guts to Say 'Jesus'"
The warning continues, claming that if you do open a
message with that Subject: line, it will erase
everything on your hard drive. Recipients of the hoax
are urged to 'Forward this letter out to as many
people as you can'. The virus is referred to as "new
and very malicious." So far, you can see several
common hoax heuristics:
* All capital letters with copious explanation
marks in the announcement.
* Claims of damage, in this case, erasing your entire
hard disk.
* Description of the virus as 'new and very
malicious.'
* Request for you to send the message along to as many
people as you can. In fact, this request is made at
the beginning of the hoax and again near middle and
again shortly thereafter and again near the end of the
message.
There is one additional twist to this hoax. Appended
in what appears to be almost an afterthought, the
"RETURNED MAIL" hoax message is part of the "It Takes
Guts to say 'Jesus'" Hoax. You can read more about the
RETURNED MAIL hoax warning.
Finally, the "It Takes Guts to Say 'Jesus'" hoax
message claims the information about the 'new virus'
originated at IBM. As always, if you have questions or
concerns about Computer Virus Hoaxes, please check our
hype alerts section. You can read more about hoaxes
and how to recognize them in the paper "How to Spot a
Virus Hoax".
===
_________________________________________________________
Derek Cashman (cashman@yahoo.com)
Graduate Student, Medicinal Chemistry
MCV / VCU
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
