Have you heard of this latest malicious virus? List of viruses so far

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

This I just got today.The newest virus is titled"It takes Guts to say 'Jenus'". IBM warned not to open it. It'll erase everything in your harddrive. Spread the word to help stop this deadly virus. May I suggest we complile a list of viruses so far so we 'll watch out for them? So far besides the infamous "Melissa" virus, I 've heard of:

  • "join the crew"
  • "PENPALS"
  • "RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER" (This virus will attach to your computer components & render them useless. AOL has said there is so far no remedy).

  • Happy99.exe Type: unspecified type. This virus supposedly target those who are christians, but it's all over now.

    -- Raymond Kwong (kcorner@hotmail.com), April 13, 1999
  • Answers

    Thanks Raymond! I got the "PENPALS" and "Happy99" in my email. Fortunately, I didn't open them. But my friends did open the Happy 99.

    -- Henry (henry@pun.com), April 13, 1999.

    Are you saying not to open the email at all or the attached file to the email?

    -- karen (karen@karen.here), April 13, 1999.

    The list is too long Raymond, and growing every day. It is so important to check the web site of Norton, Mcafee, or whatever anti-virus program you're running for regular updates. When a new virus is discovered, it usually takes them only a few days to come up with the fix. <:)=

    -- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 13, 1999.

    "Deadly virus" ???

    Happy99.exe supposedly targets christians? How the hell would it know?

    You are so clueless! LOL

    Get yourself some computer help Raymond.

    -- attachment (happy99@melissa.virus), April 13, 1999.


    Karen, my understanding of a virus is that it has to come through an attachment. Opening an e-mail won't do it. If this is wrong, someone, please let me know.

    I have begun to include in my e-mails a reference to each attachment, by name, so the person receiving it will know that it is from me, and which is not if there are any.

    -- winna (??@??.com), April 13, 1999.



    winna,

    This is only one kind of virus, although this one has been getting alot of press lately. You can also get a virus when you download software, or put a diskette in your computer. There have even been cases of shrink-wrapped software that had a virus, though rare. <:)=

    -- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 13, 1999.


    An excellent defense is to have a software such as Norton Antivirus and "enable" the Autoprotect. This scans all attachments when you try to open them.

    As a recruiter, I get a lot of attached files. I can't refuse to use them, they are usually resumes which I may need.

    When one of our offices recently broke down and installed Norton 5.0, they found 25 different viruses in various parts of their network.

    -- Jon Williamson (pssomerville@sprintmail.com), April 13, 1999.


    FWIW, Melissa is not a virus, its a worm. Does no damage to your hardrive. Just clogs up systems with overloaded e-mails (bad enough in itself)

    A good read on e-mail virus 'memes' w/ links to other sites

    ta-ta!

    -- Mutha Nachu (---@greenerpastures.com), April 13, 1999.


    raymond, "it takes guts to say jesus" is not a virus. that is a hoax. check with symantec's page.

    -- jocelyne slough (jonslough@tln.net), April 13, 1999.

    jocelyne,

    Now that "Jesus" has been published as a hoax, it won't take long before someone comes up with a real virus with the same name. That's part of the problem, the "attitude" of the virus writer. <:)=

    -- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 13, 1999.



    Winna - I wanted Raymond to clarify what he meant for any newbies since he thought it was important enough for a thread. Thanks for the input. karen

    -- karen (karen@karen.kar), April 13, 1999.

    Karen

    My understanding is that the virus usually comes through an attachment. Just opening an e-mail won't result in being infected. Then Sysman's explanation is also a good way of putting it. Someone who told me of the latest virus said he supposedly got it from IBM . I have not had time to verify. The word is allegedly not "Jesus", but "Jenus". I could be wrong.

    And Attachment, as to Happy99, I read it at a respected website. I know of someone who opened it & got messed up. I recalled reading an earlier post on this board that there's a fix for the Happy99 problem. It's also a fact that many christians have received this email attachment. Who's clueless? I suppose you are ignorant of the fact that christians as a group is a common target by some bigots in society. Perhaps you sympathize with these bigots?



    -- Raymond Kwong (kcorner@hotmail.com), April 13, 1999.

    I'm in the business of keeping up to date with email related viruses and their hoaxes. So for your information ...

    Join The Crew - Hoax

    Penpals - You may be referring to Penpal Greetings, which is a Hoax

    It Takes Guts To Say Jesus - Hoax

    RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER - Hoax, in fact this hoax has a detrimental side effect. RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVER is a standard email message that is sent from mail servers to people if an email message that they sent was unable to be delivered. Within the email message that is returned it in fact details why the email message was unable to be delivered. So the email Hoax is about an error message that is sent by email servers.

    Happy99.exe - Real, this a file attachment within an email message. If you execute it you see some nice images of fireworks, it does not discriminate so Christians and Non-Christians alike would be affected. It will only infect your system if you execute the file attachment. Once executed it places itself into your system in such a way that whenever you send out an email it attaches itself to it and you don't know. This virus will only affect machines using the Windows Operating System.

    Melissa - Real, the subject of the email message you receive will begin with 'Important Message From', within the email message is a File Attachment. This File Attachment is a macro virus, if executed it will scan your Address Book and send out up to 50 emails to all those people in your address book with the Melissa macro virus attached. Typically Microsoft based products are affected if they use a macro scripting language. This virus will not damage your machine, however due to the high volume of emails it can produce it could bring down mail servers if they are not protected against it.

    Email Hoaxes that describe the latest and greatest virus that will bring down the world have some common attributes, you can use these to determine if you have a Hoax or not but it is always better to check at a place like McAfee.

    I hope this information helps.

    Regards, Simon Richards

    -- Simon Richards (simon@wair.com.au), April 14, 1999.


    Here is a good web page that details various Email Hoaxes:

    Email Hoaxes Web Page Link

    Regards, Simon Richards

    -- Simon Richards (simon@wair.com.au), April 14, 1999.


    Simon, thanks for the information & the virus hoax site.

    -- Raymond Kwong (kcorner@hotmail.com), April 14, 1999.


    Moderation questions? read the FAQ