Dear Schisto members!
The following message concerns computer viruses which are spreading through the
internet. The following virus alerts were obtained from different sources and I
forward them to you.
Do not get infected...
Christoph Grevelding
Subject: Internet virus alert
The following message was received from listserv CDROMLAN regarding a
virus in a file called PKZIP300.ZIP...
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 utility. DO NOT DOWN
LOAD THIS FILE under any circumstances! If you install or
expand this file, the virus will wipe your hard drive disk 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.
Subject: Good times virus
There is a computer virus that is being sent across the
Internet. If you receive an e-mail message with the subject
line "Good Times", DO NOT read the message, DELETE it
immediately. Please read the messages below. Someone
is sending e-mail under the title "Good Times" nation wide,
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.
*************************************************************
WARNING!!!!!!! INTERNET VIRUS
The FCC released a warning 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 terrifying, 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 e-mail 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 happening until 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
reading "Good Times". Avoiding infection is easy once the
file has been received- not reading it! The act of loading
the file into the mail server's ASCII buffer causes the "Good
Times" mainline program to initialize and execute.
The program is highly intelligent- it will send copies of
itself to everyone whose e-mail 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 here is - if you receive a file with the subject
line "Good Times", delete it immediately! Do not read it"
Rest assured that whoever's name was on the "From" line was
surely struck by the virus. Warn your friends and local
system users of this newest threat to the Internet! It could
save them a lot of time and money.
E N D O F N O T E
Dr.Christoph G.Grevelding
Genetische Parasitologie des
Instituts fuer Genetik der
Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet
40225 Duesseldorf
Germany
Tel.: 49-211-81-13070
Fax : 49-211-81-12333
Fax : 49-211-81-12279
e-mail: Christoph.Grevelding at uni-duesseldorf.de
