[thelist] New Virus Alert

[Jacob Stetser]

<tip type="How to spot a virus hoax">

>
>1.   There is a new virus - WOBBLER. It will arrive on e-mail titled 
>CALIFORNIA.
>
>IBM and AOL have announced that it is very powerful, more so than 
>Melissa,  there is no remedy.
RED FLAG: IBM and AOL don't 'announce' virii. CERT and Antivirus companies do.
RED FLAG: Bad grammar.
RED FLAG: No mention of which platforms it hits, nor whether it only 
affects Outlook
RED FLAG: "There is no remedy" -- common scare tactic. No virus is unstoppable.

>It will eat all your information on the hard drive and also destroys 
>Netscape Navigator
>and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
RED FLAG: Redundancy. If it 'eats' all your information, of COURSE it 
destroys 'x'
RED FLAG: 'eats' .. no self-respecting Virus announcer uses that word 
instead of 'erase'

>Do not open anything  with this title and please pass
>this message on to all your contacts and anyone     who uses your 
>e-mail facility. Not
>many people seem to know about this yet so propagate it as fast as possible.
RED FLAG: Duh. Telling everyone to send on a message is almost as bad 
as a virus that does it automatically. Real virus alerts don't say 
this.

>
>2.   If you receive an e-mail titled "Win A. Holiday" DO NOT open it.
>
>It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter to as
>many people as you can. This is a new, very malicious virus and not many
>people know about it.
RED FLAGS: same as above
>
>This information was announced yesterday morning from Microsoft.
RED FLAG: No date (real virus alerts are dated, since they too get 
forwarded sometimes)
RED FLAG: Microsoft wouldn't announce virii. To them, it's a feature, 
not a bug :)
>

Hope this helps!
</tip>
Jake Stetser
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