Virus alert - 'Life is Beautiful'

Post by **Hepzibah** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:25 pm

[face=Comic Sans MS]I've just had an email sent to me by a reliable source (although I cannot naturally vouch for the preceeding chain) alerting me to a new email virus that has started today.
It may be true or it may be another hoax, but fore warned is fore armed.[/face]

Please
Be Extremely Careful
especially if using internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on.

This information arrived this morning direct from both Microsoft and Norton.

Please send it to everybody you know who has access to the Internet.

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 , and 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, e-mail and password.

This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon.

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

The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself 'life owner.'

PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS EMAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS and ask them to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY

Post by **Horus** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:41 pm

Its a hoax, just ignore it

Post by **Hepzibah** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:56 pm

Horus wrote:Its a hoax, just ignore it

Thanks Horus, I think the chase from blue to green to red sides stops here.

[face=Comic Sans MS]That's good news then.

I wouldn't have felt too good though if I'd had a warning, not passed it on and then calamity had happened.

Why on earth do people start these alerts? Can it really be that amusing?

The same with starting a virus. Surely the only people to gain by it are those that produce the anti-virus software!

[/face]

Post by **Horus** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:52 pm

It is easy to see your concern Hepzi and you only had peoples welfare at heart, so I have posted my reply made on the Blue site on here also, just to clarify the situation:

Why on earth do people start these alerts? Can it really be that amusing?

That is why they do it

they get a superiority kick out of it. The real damage they do is to worry people into thinking that the threat is genuine, that person then passes on the warning and very soon it can cause a panic or clogg up websites with people passing on the warning. Unfortunately a lot of people are not aware of this and because they may only use computers and not really understand the way they work, they can easily be panicked into thinking something is a threat. Whilst you should never treat any potential threat lightly, it is usually quite easy to just close the application down that has given you the warning, whether that be an email, an attachment, or something else that pops up on a website, it is best to just shut it down and do not click anything. Make a note of what the 'virus' or 'threat' was called and type it into your search engine. You may then see a list of topics that will tell you about the virus/threat, most will be hoaxes. Just one word of WARNING though, only open up websites that you can trust for the information, for example Wikipedia, Norton, Microsoft etc. as some sites could be set up purposely to infect your PC.