Virus Hoaxes

First of all I want to give a short definition of a virus hoax:
A virus hoax is a false warning about a computer virus. Typically, the warning arrives in an e-mail note or is distributed through a note in a company’s internal network. These notes are usually forwarded using distribution lists and they will typically suggest that the recipient forward the note to other distribution lists.

History of hoaxes
Since 1988, computer virus hoaxes have been circulating the Internet. Form this time on virus hoaxes have flooded the Net. With thousands of viruses worldwide, virus paranoia in the community has risen to an extremely high level. It is this paranoia that fuels these false warnings. A good example of this behaviour is the “Good Times” virus hoax which started in 1994 and is still circulating the Internet today. Instead of spreading from one computer to another by itself, good times relies on people to pass it along!

How to identify a hoax
There are a few characteristics which help to spot a hoax:

1. It’s a warning message about a virus (or occasionally a Trojan) spreading on the Internet.
2. It’s usually from an individual or from a trustworthy company, but never from a cited source.
3. It warns not to read or open an email message with a special subject (like “Good Times”) or download the supposed virus and delete the message.
4. It describes the virus as having horrific destructive powers and often the ability to send itself by email.
5. It urges to alert everyone you know and usually tells you this more than once.
6. It seeks credibility by describing the virus in specious technical sounding language.


But although a virus hoax is now easily to spot, there is still a problem to concentrate on. It’s obvious that for a virus to spread, it must be executed. Reading a mail message does not execute the mail message. BUT, Trojans and viruses have been found as executable attachments to email messages. If you save the attachment and scan it before executing it, you are safe (if you have a good anti-virus program of course).
Another problem is that some people who create real viruses can use known hoaxes to their advantage. A good example is the AOL4FREE hoax. This began as a hoax warning about a nonexistent virus. Once it was known that this was a hoax somebody began to distribute a destructive Trojan horse in a file named AOL4FREE attached to the original hoax virus warning! The lesson is: always remain vigilant and NEVER open a suspicious attachment!

What to do when I receive a virus warning
First of all, try to find out if it’s a hoax. If you are not sure, you can visit different homepages (www.av.ibm.com, www.symantec.com, www.mcafeeb2b.com, www.europe.datafellows.com, http://ciac.llnl.gov ...) where you can check the warning message against updated lists of virus hoaxes and of real viruses. If you don’t find the supposed virus in neither of these lists there is always an email address given where you can turn to.
The most important point is that you SHOULD NEVER FORWARD any of these false virus alert messages. Send a message to the person who sent you the hoax message and tell him or her it’s a hoax. You may also want to point that person to some sites in the Internet which explain virus hoaxes.

Why ignore them – they are just harmless
1. Virus hoaxes play on peoples’ fear. Especially new or inexperienced computer users do easily believe these warnings. If they are not informed about virus hoaxes they will forward all warnings to everybody and this can have unpleasant consequences. Some email systems have collapsed after dozens of users forwarded a false alert to everybody in the company.
2. Hoax virus warning messages are more than mere annoyances. After repeatedly becoming alarmed only to learn that there was no real virus, computer users may get into the habit of ignoring all virus warning messages, leaving them especially vulnerable to the next real, and truly destructive, virus.

So be careful and never forget what common sense tells you!


Sources:

* http://www.av.ibm.com/InsideTheLab/Bookshelf/WhitePapers/Wells/HowToSpotAVirusHoax
* http://kryten.eng.monash.edu.au/netscams.html
* http://www.mcafeeb2b.com/asp_set/anti_virus/library/hoaxes.asp
* http://www.europe.datafellows.com/virus-info/hoax
* http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
* http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
* http://ecco.bsee.swin.edu.au/text/virus/cvm-ed10.html
* http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACChainLetters.html
* http://www.tu-berlin.de/www/software/hoax.shtml
* http://minerva.sozialwiss.uni-hamburg.de/majordomo/hoax.html
* http://www.whatis.com/virushoa.htm

V I R U S – W A R N I N G
There is a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. If you receive an email message with the subject line “Good Times”, DO NOT read the message, DELETE it immediately.
Please read the message below. Some miscreant is sending email under the title “Good Times nationwide, if you get anything like this, DON’T DOWN LOAD THIS FILE! It has a virus that rewrites your hard drive, obliteratring anything on it. Please be careful and forward this mail to anyone you care about.
WARNING!!!!!! INTERNET VIRUS

The FCC released a warning last Wednesday concerning a matter of major importance to any regular user of the Internet.
Apparently a new computer virus has been enineered by a user of AMERICA ON LINE that is unparalleled in its destructive capability. What makes it so terrifying, said the FCC, is the fact that no progran beeds to be excgabged for a new computer to be infected. It can be spread through the existing email systems of the Internet. Once a computer is infected, one of several things can happen. If the computer contains a hard drive, that will most likely be destroyed. If the program is not stopped, the computer’s processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop—which can severely damage the processor if left running that way too long.
Luckily, there is one sure means of detecting what is now known as the “Good Times” virus. It always travels to new computers the same way in a text email message with the subject line reading “Good Times”. Avoiding infection is easy once the file has been received siplmy by NOT READING IT! The act of loading the file into the mail server’s ASCII buffer causes the “Good Times” mainline program to initialize and execute. The porogram is highly intelligent—it will send copies of itself to everyone whose email address is contained in a receive-mail file or a sent-mail file, if it can find one. It will then proceed to trash the somputer it is running on.
If you receive a file with the subject line “Good Times”, delete it immediately! Do not read it! Rest assured that whoevers’d name was on the “From” line was surely struck by the virus.
Warn your friends and local system users of this newest threat to the Internet! I could save them a lot of time and money. Could you pass this along to your global mailing list as well?
V i r u s H o a x e s
Def.: virus hoax = false warning about a computer virus

characteristics:

1. = warning message about a virus/ Trojan spreading on the Internet
2. never from a cited source
3. warns: not to read or open email with special subject
not to download the supposed virus
tells: delete the message
4. describes virus as having horrific destructive powers
5. urges to alert everyone
6. using specious technical sounding language


problems:

* Trojans and virus attached to email messages
* using virus hoaxes for distributing Trojans and viruses


what to do:
→ try to find out if it’s a hoax
→ check warning message against updated lists of virus
→ ask for help
→ never forward virus hoaxes
→ tell person who sent it to you that it’s a hoax

just harmless?

* play on people’s fear → new computer users do believe → forward messages → email system collapses
* after many false messages users ignore all virus warnings → vulnerable to next real virus


So be careful and never forget what common sense tells you!