Quite eye catching

[Dean Winchester]

Dear PHENIXians,

The message below appears to be a valid alert. I checked
"HoaxBusters" (http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/) and found no entries
matching either:

Subject: "A Virtual Card for You"

or

Subject: "An Internet Flower For You"

If you receive mail with either of these subject lines (even
from somebody you know, DELETE IT! DO NOT OPEN the message.

Brant

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: FW: VIRUS ALERT/ WORST EVER ACCORDING TO CNN
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 16:57:54 -0400
From: "Reeve, Sharon S" <reeve@bnl.gov>

VIRUS ALERT

SUBJECT: VIRUS ALERT/ WORST EVER ACCORDING TO CNN
PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST !!

A new virus has just been discovered that has been classified by Microsoft
(www.microsoft.com <http://www.microsoft.com/> ) and by McAfee
(www.mcafee.com <http://www.mcafee.com/> ) as the most destructive ever!
this virus was discovered yesterday afternoon by McAfee and no vaccine has
yet been developed. This virus simply destroys Sector Zero from the hard
disk, where vital information for its functioning are stored.

This virus acts in the following manner: It sends itself automatically to
all contacts on your list with the title "A Virtual Card for You." As soon
as the supposed virtual card is opened, the computer freezes so that the
user has to reboot. When the ctrl+alt+del keys or the reset button are
pressed, the virus destroys Sector Zero, thus permanently destroying the
hard disk. Yesterday in just a few hours this virus caused panic in New
York, according to news broadcast by CNN (www.cnn.com/http://www.cnn.com
<http://www.cnn.com/http://www.cnn.com> ). This alert was received by an
employee of Microsoft itself. So don't open any mails with subject: "A
Virtual Card for You." As soon as you get the mail, delete it. Please > >
pass this mail to all of your friends.

Forward this to everyone in your address book. I would rather receive this
25 times than not at all.

Also: Intel announced that a new and very destructive virus was discovered
recently.. If you receive an email called "An Internet Flower For You," do
not open it. Delete it right away! This virus removes all dynamic link
libraries (.dll files) from your computer. Your computer will not be able
to boot up !!

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST!!

I received an e-mail about this from two different friends who actually don't know each other. For some odd reason, I decided to investigate myself if any trace of this notice appeared accross the Internet only to stumble with this post.

Has any of you received a similar message?
EDIT: For some strange reason, I smell "hoax"...

 

[Busta]

Actually heard about this on the news about a month ago or so.

It supposed to mainly be a big problem for businesses, even though it can screw up individual computers big-time as well.

The news though brought on some expert in Viruses and explained about how this one really doesn't have a fix and can literally make some small businesses go bankrupt and wipe-out many corporations computer memory AND back-ups.

 

[Dean Winchester]

Actually heard about this on the news about a month ago or so.

It supposed to mainly be a big problem for businesses, even though it can screw up individual computers big-time as well.

The news though brought on some expert in Viruses and explained about how this one really doesn't have a fix and can literally make some small businesses go bankrupt and wipe-out many corporations computer memory AND back-ups.

Well, I just got aware of it recently. Oh and about the back ups, well I always thought that the best way to keep a secure back up was to have it located in a computer isolated from the network and just update the information inside of it manually using any kind of storage devices.
The heck, just what we needed huh? Another thing to worry about

This is a crazy world I say ye

 

[Franice]

Really old hoax. You can't permanently destroy a hard disk unless you use a hammer or something, and unless the virus rewrites every single sector on the drive, it's still possible to recover data. Plus, if it were really from McAffee and Microsoft, I doubt they'd send you a generic link to there homepage, rather than an official page with actual info on it.

And the CNN link totally discredits it, because CNN is never the place to go for virus news. The media loves to perpetuate the "HOMG UR COMPUTER IS GOING 2 KILL U" idea to bump up ratings.