Date: Fri, 09 Dec 1994 09:36:59 +0200 (EET) From: kristiina kalleinen <KALLEINE@valt.helsinki.fi> To: h-verkko@sara.cc.utu.fi Subject: ALLEGED VIRUS THROUGH E-MAIL IS HOAX
Tässäpä maailmalta lisätietoa viruksista!
Terv. Kristiina Kalleinen
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Date sent: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 09:49:10 -0500 Send reply to: H-Net Russian History list <H-RUSSIA%UICVM.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi> From: Martin Ryle <RYLE@urvax.urich.edu> Subject: ALLEGED VIRUS THROUGH E-MAIL IS HOAX To: Multiple recipients of list H-RUSSIA <H-RUSSIA%UICVM@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
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========================================================== Some of you may have been warned of a virus that is carried in e-mail postings. The following should relieve your minds.
Martin Ryle, H-RUSSIA Moderator ============================================================= I chased this up with the virus watch guru on my site and he forwarded this bulletin from CIAC. I though it would be valuable for other list owners Edis Bevan
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THE "Good Times" VIRUS IS AN URBAN LEGEND
In the early part of December, CIAC started to receive information requests about a supposed "virus" which could be contracted via America OnLine, simply by reading a message. The following is the message that CIAC received:
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| Here is some important information. Beware of a file called Goodtimes. |
| |
| Happy Chanukah everyone, and be careful out there. There is a virus on |
| America Online being sent by E-Mail. If you get anything called "Good |
| Times", DON'T read it or download it. It is a virus that will erase your |
| hard drive. Forward this to all your friends. It may help them a lot. |
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THIS IS A HOAX. Upon investigation, CIAC has determined that this message originated from both a user of America Online and a student at a university at approximately the same time, and it was meant to be a hoax.
CIAC has also seen other variations of this hoax, the main one is that any electronic mail message with the subject line of "xxx-1" will infect your computer.
This rumor has been spreading very widely. This spread is due mainly to the fact that many people have seen a message with "Good Times" in the header.
They delete the message without reading it, thus believing that they have saved themselves from being attacked. These first-hand reports give a false sense of credibility to the alert message.
There has been one confirmation of a person who received a message with "xxx-1" in the header, but an empty message body. Then, (in a panic, because he had heard the alert), he checked his PC for viruses (the first time he checked his machine in months) and found a pre-existing virus on his machine. He incorrectly came to the conclusion that the E-mail message gave him the virus (this particular virus could NOT POSSIBLY have spread via an E-mail message). This person then spread his alert.
As of this date, there are no known viruses which can infect merely through reading a mail message. For a virus to spread some program must be executed. Reading a mail message does not execute the mail message. Yes, Trojans have been found as executable attachments to mail messages, the most notorious being the IBM VM Christmas Card Trojan of 1987, also the TERM MODULE Worm (reference CIAC Bulletin B-7) and the GAME2 MODULE Worm (CIAC Bulletin B-12). But this is not the case for this particular "virus" alert.
If you encounter this message being distributed on any mailing lists, simply ignore it or send a follow-up message stating that this is a false rumor.
Karyn Pichnarczyk CIAC Team ciac@llnl.gov
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