Virus Warning (confirmed By Snopes Site)

[MG Mal]

Any computer Experts out there?

Received this from a family friend, and wondered if any of you "EXperts" had heard anything.


PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS NOTICE TO YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, CONTACTS! In the coming days, you should be aware.....
Do not open any message with an attachment called: Invitation FACEBOOK, regardless of who sent it. It is a virus that opens an Olympic torch that burns the whole hard disc C of your computer.
This virus will be received from someone you had in your address book .. That's why you should send this message to all your contacts. It is better to receive this email 25 times to receive the virus and open it .. If you receive a mail called: Invitation FACEBOOK, though sent by a friend, do not open it and delete it immediately. It is the worst virus announced by CNN. A new virus has been discovered recently that has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever.
It is a Trojan Horse that asks you to install an adobe flash plug-in. Once you install it, it's all over. And there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information of their function is saved.
SNOPES SAYS THIS IS TRUE............
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/youtube.asp

[JPB]

It can only do any harm to machines that are running Windoze so don't worry unless you're one of the Microsoft apologists. Virus? What's that then?

[OneCarefulOwner]

I typed up a nice reply for you on AR Online's old forum, here it is again:

Unless you've looked at Snopes, you can't take that link as confirmation. Guess what happens when you do go to that link? Correct, it's only vaguely related to this warning.

There's no way an application can contain an Olympic torch... That in and of itself should have been enough to let you know this is crap. Mentioning CNN & Microsoft is just icing on the bullshit cake - Microsoft don't classify viruses as anything other than profit opportunities! There's a genuine warning behind this (don't open attachments you don't recognise or expect) but this message no longer relates to the issue at hand; it's been turned into scaremongering.

The application in the original alert isn't even a virus, it's just a normal program that uses social engineering to be allowed to work its evilness on your computer. Very lazy programming usually, but because it doesn't have to be clever & sneaky it can be more destructive because by choosing to run it, you help it bypass most types of security on your computer.

[TerryG]

I won't be boring and talk about Linux but Ubuntu's latest interface is pants, Fedora is much nicer to use but ubuntu being debian based is easier to work on and support.


any time you get a virus warning delete it. AV companies don't send out email alerts.
If your anti-virus is up to date, you have a firewall installed and you don't visit dubious sites you have nothing to worry about.

[suffolkpete]

Please don't start a debate about Windows vs the various flavours of Linux I thought I'd left all that behind when I retired. For the Windows using majority, you can do no better than to follow the excellent advice given be OneCarefulOwner and Terry in the posts above.

[JPB]

the Windows using majority

Sorry , but with ever more public bodies as well as smaller companies and individuals now using alternatives to Micro$oft's bloated and vulnerable excuse for an operating system, changing is a viable solution to threats of this type, or would be if the threat were a threat at all and not just another bit of scaremongering aimed at causing people to spend money on things they neither need nor - in many cases - have the capacity to run.

I'll leave it as I don't want to dig anyone's head out of that lovely, warm sand but there's a reason for virtually every LA's educational facilities now moving on from that product line in their networks. Councils and Education authorities don't spend money if there's a viable alternative available for virtually no cost.

But yes, thanks to OCO and Terry for offering suggestions regarding ways in which it's possible to deal with these issues. Where they're actually present....

[OneCarefulOwner]

Not everyone wants to make the change, or is capable of doing so even with the easier flavours of Linux that are around nowadays. I personally had wanted to break from Windows for years & accomplished it when I accidentally toasted my main box, which meant a slightly earlier than planned purchase of a shiny new iMac; that was 5 years ago & aside from a graphics cards needing replacement under warranty, it's never given me an iota of trouble.

Good advice is good advice regardless of the operating system - with the type of "attack" mentioned in the OP, if it had been properly programmed it could work on any system and only the user's knowledge of what it *should* be doing would limit what it *could* end up doing. Be honest, how many times have you given an installer rights to access your files without knowing exactly what it's meant to be doing?

[JPB]

Yeah, errrr... once or twice maybe!

Still, that gimp mask has given some great service over the years so the iffy registry entries on the old 'doze box were worth it.