Virus Warning!!

[Jonnyfp]

- Please be extremely careful, especially if using internet mail such as
Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on. This information arrived this morning
from Microsoft and Norton. Please send it to everybody you know who
accesses the Internet.

You may receive an apparently harmless email with a Powerpoint
presentation "Life is beautiful.pps". If you receive it, DO NOT OPEN
THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately. If you
open the file a message will appear on your screen saying: "It is too
late now. You life is no longer beautiful" and subsequently you will
LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you will gain
access to your name, email and password. This is a new virus which
started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING
POSSIBLE TO STOP THIS VIRUS. AOL has already confirmed the severity,
and the antivirus softwares are not capable of destroying it. The virus
has been created by a hacker who calls himself
"Life owner".

[Otter]

Hoax. see http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/life.is.beautiful.hoax.html

[Huw Beer Monster]

As a guide...

1) Anything that says "please send to everyone you know" is likely to be a hoax.
2) Anything that says "this info came from..." - check the sources. It is NOT the responsibility of Microsoft, IBM, AOL etc to notify people of virii. This is the job of the AV companies. In fact, taking this particular example they used "Norton" - they should have used "Symantec", cos they bought out Norton. That would have been more believable.
3) If you are unsure, check the description of the virus against the databases of descriptions provided by the major AV companies - Sophos, Symantec, McAfee etc - Full Marks to Otter ;)
4) Check the Hoax Lists - http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ is a good one
5) If you are still unsure, send it to an AV company - don't send it to everyone you know. IIRC, the tactic of embedding a virus in a fake warning has been used. People DO send stuff to everyone they know. And there the pain begins.

HTH, HAND

[Doro]

As a guide...

1) Anything that says "please send to everyone you know" is likely to be a hoax.
2) Anything that says "this info came from..." - check the sources. It is NOT the responsibility of Microsoft, IBM, AOL etc to notify people of virii. This is the job of the AV companies. In fact, taking this particular example they used "Norton" - they should have used "Symantec", cos they bought out Norton. That would have been more believable.
3) If you are unsure, check the description of the virus against the databases of descriptions provided by the major AV companies - Sophos, Symantec, McAfee etc - Full Marks to Otter ;)
4) Check the Hoax Lists - http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ is a good one
5) If you are still unsure, send it to an AV company - don't send it to everyone you know. IIRC, the tactic of embedding a virus in a fake warning has been used. People DO send stuff to everyone they know. And there the pain begins.

HTH, HAND



6. Also any virus that is supposed to completely wipe yer hard-drive is suspect

that is more difficult to do than you think, it wouldn't happen in an instant and you'd probably notice it before it did :)