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When
someone receives an email message, possibly forwarded by someone they know,
describing the horrible new computer "virus" that's just been released
on the world, it's a fairly natural reaction to want to immediately forward the
message to everyone you know. Resist the urge. Please!!!
Many,
if not most, of the "virus" alerts you'll hear about via email are
simply hoaxes. Perpetuating the hoax by passing it on to others without
verifying the information helps the prankster create disruption and panic, and
can cause others to either pass on the hoax or spend time tracking down the
truth.
Virus
hoaxes cost millions of dollars annually in time spent by countless people
diverted from productive work, resources devoted to virus detection and defense,
and bandwidth utilized flooding the Internet with useless and harmful email. At
least, before you take any action regarding a reported "virus
alert", check with someone you trust, or check it out yourself, to make
sure it's just not one of many Internet hoaxes.
Many
hoaxes have made the rounds for months, even years, before an average
e-mail user may hear about them. The "Goodtimes virus", by example, is
a well-known hoax. In fact, it is probably the most well-known hoax in the
computer world. The Goodtimes virus does not exist, and has never existed. It
was a hoax when it was first published in December 1994 and remains a hoax
today.
If
you want to read about the "Goodtimes" hoax, go to the CIAC site
notice at :
CIAC
NOTES 94-04c
and/or
CIAC
NOTES 95-09
Symantec
also has this description of the "Goodtimes" hoax:
www.symantec.com/avcenter/data/goodtime.html
The
"Goodtimes" hoax claimed impressive credentials, stating at the front
of each hoax letter that that the "FCC" had issued a warning... Only
one problem: the FCC doesn't issue virus warnings.
See:
FCC
Public Notice 5036 to
view the FCC disclaimer.
There
a number of good documents on the web, some of them very lengthily, discussing
the origin and spread of the Goodtimes hoax, if you are interested. Other virus/Trojan
hoaxes include: PKZ300, Irina, Good Times Spoof, Deeyenda, Ghost, PENPAL
GREETINGS!, Make Money Fast, NaughtyRobot, AOL4FREE, Join the Crew, Death Ray,
AOL V4.0 Cookie.
You
can find a excellent article on Internet Hoaxes and a description of all
those listed here at:
CIAC
INTERNET HOAXES
Most
virus "alerts" are posted to LARGE groups of people. Many people
simply blindly repo0st any "alert" they see to everyone they know.
Resist the urge.
If
you want to forward virus alerts, you should at least check with your network
administrator or ISP or other informed source to see if you can verify that the
reported "alert" is real. Using sources like Rob
Rosenberger at the Computer
Virus Myths homepage and
U.S. DOE;s CIAC
to validate possible virus alerts before passing them on to anyone.
If
you receive a virus alert from anyone, one thing to check for is if it provides
any reliable web links to sites you can trust to validate the information given
in the warning letter. If there are no links shown, or you follow a link
mentioned and it is non-existent, be very suspicious.
 The
Bedford County Sheriff's Department has decreased the chances of viruses from
the main sources in a place of business. The Internet and outside removable
media. There are only a select group of computers that have these features
available, and those are kept locked in their respective offices when the
persons are not present. Every now and then we may have to investigate a
possible virus infection of our systems, but these matters are handled by a
select group of individuals and at no time is a threat of a virus spread through
the department without legitimate cause and verification. We find that having personnel
who are trained in the computer field and recognize such instances is much more
effective than everyone taking their own course of action against a virus threat.
This way there is only select ones who are responsible and those individuals can
maintain a record easier for themselves than trying to track down what everyone
else has or has not done.
It
is suggested that you never trust any virus warning that cannot be verified,
through at least on URL in the warning, at a legitimate (a URL that you can
verify independently) virus-expert site, such as the CIAC homepage, Computer
Virus Myths homepage, or a major Anti-Virus software manufacturer's homepage,
such as:
Symantec
Antivirus Research Center
DataFellows
Virus information Center
Stiller
Research Virus Information
Virus
Bulletin Home Page
Joe
Well's Wild List - Viruses in the wild
NIST
Virus Information Page
McAfee
Virus Pages
You
do not have to be a virus expert - you just need to know where to find them.
The
CIAC home page is: http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/
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