E-Mail Virus Alert - PLEASE READ

Steve_Coletti (bigsteve@dorsai.dorsai.org)
Thu, 08 Aug 1996 06:27:10 -0400

I received this posting today in one of my newsgroups, and if he didn't
spam it into one of yours too, I'm resending it. I've seen reliable virus
warning messages from this person before so I would be worried about this
one.

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From: Gary Larkin <GLarkin@gnn.com>
Newsgroups: alt.rock-n-roll.oldies
Subject: Virus Allert Please Read
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 1996 00:37:11
Organization: GNN
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Message-ID: <4ubrem$a82@news-e2d.gnn.com>
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
X-GNN-NewsServer-Posting-Date: 8 Aug 1996 04:46:14 GMT
X-Mailer: GNNmessenger 1.3

Please Read. Synopsis follows:

If you get Email Entitled "Good Times" Delete it. It has a virus as an attached file.

Also we again warn you about a fake PKZIP300

End of Sysopsis

There is a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. If you receive an email message with the subject line "Good Times", DO NOT read the message, DELETE it immediately. Please read the messages below. Some
miscreant is sending email under the title "Good Times" nationwide, if you get anything like this, DON'T DOWN LOAD THE FILE! It has a virus that rewrites your hard drive, obliterating anything on it.

Please be careful and forward this mail to anyone you care about.

The FCC released a warning last Wednesday concerning a matter of major importance to any regular user of the Internet. Apparently a new computer virus has been engineered by a user of AMERICA ON LINE that is unparalleled
in its destructive capability. Other more well-known viruses such as "Stoned", "Airwolf" and "Michaelangelo" pale in comparison to the prospects of this newest creation by a warped mentality. What makes this virus so te
rrifying, said the FCC, is the fact that no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected. It can be spread through the existing

email systems of the Internet.

Once a Computer is infected, one of several things can happen. If the computer contains a hard drive, that will most likely be destroyed. If the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be placed in an nth
-complexity infinite binary loop -which can severely damage the processor if left running that way too long.

Unfortunately, most novice computer users will not realize what is
happeninguntil it is far too late. Luckily, there is one sure means of detecting what is now known as the "Good Times" virus. It always travels to new computers the same way in a text email message with the subject line r
eading "Good Times". Avoiding infection is easy once the file has been received simply by NOT READING IT! The act of loading the file into the mail server's ASCII buffer causes the "Good Times" mainline program to initial
ize and execute.

The program is highly intelligent- it will send copies of itself to everyone whose email address is contained in a receive-mail file or a sent-mail file, if it can find one. It will then proceed to trash the computer it
is running on.

The bottom line is: - if you receive a file with the subject line "Good Times", delete it immediately! Do not read it" Rest assured that whoever' name was on the "From" line was surely struck by the virus. Warn your f
riends and local system users of this newest threat to the Internet! It could save them a lot of time and money.

Could you pass this along to your global mailing list as well?

2> Subject: New and Dangerous Virus For your information ...

DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF THE EXTENSION

We work closely with the military and received this message from a
very reliable source in DC this morning.

A NEW Trojan Horse Virus has emerged on the internet with the name
PKZIP300.ZIP, so named as to give the impression that this file is
a new version of the PKZIP software used to "ZIP" (compress) files.

DO NOT DOWNLOAD this file under any circumstances!!! If you install
or expand this file, the virus WILL wipe your hard disk clean and
affect modems at 14.4 and higher. This is an extremely destructive
virus and there is NOT yet a way of cleaning up this one.

REPEAT: DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF THE
EXTENSION.

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