FW:Fwd:Worth noting

[Mike.C]

I received the above, and i foolishly opened it because i know the person who sent it.

Inside it started by giving a few hundred names of people who had apparently in turn forwarded to it someone they know.

Then at the bottom of the email it stated:

You may receive an apparently harmless email with a Power Point Presentation "Life Is Beautiful"

If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, delete it immediately.

If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying "It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful"

Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, email address and password.

AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the antivirus softwares are not capable of destroying it.

It ends by saying: PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS AND ASK THEM TO PASS IT ON TO THEIR FRIENDS.

I have never received this sort of thing before and being a complete novice i do not know how to act, and whether it contains a virus, or something else in my computer. But as far as i know this is how a virus acts, although i thought that it just sends itself to any email address on you computer, and not rely on someone to pass it on.

I have the free AVG running to see if i have a virus, but what else can i do, to either find out if this is a virus and if so get rid of it.

This might be a totally innocence email, but you have got to be totally stupid to pass a email like this onto someone else, or does this sort of thing happen all the time, and i have no right to have the hump with him?

What can i do?

Cheers

Mike

 

[Shady]

It's almost certainly a hoax - the problem with these is that they can be spread to everyone by innocent believers..

http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBMalCode.shtml#beautiful

The above site has it specifically listed as one.

Edit - I'd just delete it to be sure, don't copy it to anyone else, and tell the sender that it's a hoax and they should stop sending the warning out...

 

[Mike.C]

Shady, i could kiss you (well may be not). Thanks mate i appreciate the quick reply.

Cheers

Mike

 

[Adam]

Its well worth checking all these things out on any of the well known anti-virus software sites such as Norton, McAfee, F-Prot etc. They all list well known "hoax" emails as well.

I have to tell people to stop sending me these type of emails quite regularly.

Adam

 

[Mike.C]

Adam,

Thankyou for your advice.

Cheers

Mike

 

[JimNoble]

Sounds like a wetware virus.

ie it infects the user and not the PC, causing them to panic and forward to everyone they know... :roll:

Jim

 

[Neomorph]

The most dangerous of these viruses I received was this one...

.. when a friend sent it me I was taking a swig of Dr Pepper from a 2 ltr bottle and ended up spraying it all over my damn monitor. :lol:

 

[Mike.C]

Nice one John, very nice indeed.

Cheers

Mike