Everything you always wanted (or needed) to know about
computer
viruses...
As reported by C|Net.com. For additional Virus information, visit their webpage.
Like so many of you, I have been swamped with warning emails and
ICQ instant messages regarding computer viruses I should be on the ookout for. While I know my friends and relatives believe they are doing me a favor by warning me of these nasty bugs,
I have thus yet been unable to convince anyone that these are merely hoaxes. The following was reported by Matt Rosoff and
presented on the 10-26-97 C|Net
television show the Web...
The two "warnings"that I receive via email the most are:
The mother of all virus hoaxes, this one has been around
since 1994 and has spread so
far that it even inspired a parody. One Good Times message claims that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission)issued the original warning. However, the FCC has nothing to do with computer viruses, and has never issued a warning about one.
Probably derived from the Good Times scam, this "warning
message" claims that an email with the subject Penpal Greetings is actually a virus. Supposedly, as you read the message, this virus infects your boot sector, erases your hard drive, duplicates itself, then sends itself to every address it finds in your email box. The message is a hoax: the "boot sector"
terminology is meaningless; no virus can execute itself simply because you read an email message; and to work, the virus
would have to know the inner workings of every email
program on the market...virtually impossible.
Other viruses you may have received a ‘warning’ on are:
Anybody who visits Usenet newsgroups has probably waded
through irrelevant messages with the header Make Money Fast. Someone thought that inventing a warning about a Make Money Fast
virus would wipe out those annoying Usenet messages. The warning
has confused Net users unfamiliar with Usenet, and the spams are still out there.
There are several versions of this warning. Most mention the FCC, and most claim that the virus will scan your hard drive for credit card information (so far, no known virus can do this). Only once does the message mention the virus's full name: Deeyenda Maddick. Say it out loud, with emphasis on the last syllable. Ha ha ha!
The warning about the Irina virus was sent out as a publicity stunt for an interactive book called Irina. The message is supposedly created by a Professor Edward Prideaux. Prideaux is a fictional character in the book.
NaughtyRobot
According to the warning, this bot can retrieve a Web site
designer's personal information through a "security hole in HTTP." There is no such hole, and the message is garbled and uses senseless terminology. NaughtyRobot is an elegant hoax for one reason: it changes the From heading of the email so the message seems to have originated from the designer's own machine.
This warning claims to have been originally written by
technicians at Symantec. But Symantec totally denies
ever releasing such a message.
For more information on virus hoaxes and overblown scares, visit Rob Rosenberger's fascinating Computer Virus Myths page.
At the Symantec
Antivirus Research Center (the makers of the Norton Antivirus programs), you can enter the name of any
suspected virus, and pull up all kinds of information.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory
Capability (CIAC) also offers info on virus
hoaxes.
