Virus Profile: A Moment Of Silence Hoax

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Virus Profile information details
Risk Assessment:	Home N/A \| Corporate N/A
Date Discovered:	3/1/1999
Date Added:	1/20/2000
Origin:	N/A
Length:	N/A
Type:	Hoax
Subtype:	E-mail
DAT Required:	N/A

Virus Characteristics

AVERT HOAX Notice!!

McAfee AVERT Labs would like to inform you of an email HOAX.

This email message is just a HOAX, currently we know of no newsgroup message about the HOAX as the initial email states. AVERT has not received any report of a user's hard drive being erased by reading the newsgroup message. We are advising users who receive the email to delete it and DO NOT pass it on as this is how an email HOAX propagates.

Below is the actual text from the message that may be received via email.

There is a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. If you see a newsgroup message with the subject line 'A MOMENT OF SILENCE..', DO NOT read the message, DELETE it immediately. Please read the messages below. Some miscreant is posting news under the title ' A Moment of Silence for the Unborn' nationwide, if you get anything like this, DON’T READ THE MESSAGE, 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 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 comparision to the prospects of this newest creation by a warped mentality. What make this virus so terrifying, said the FCC, is the fact athat no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected. It can be spread through the existing NEWSGROUP and 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 severly damage the processor if left running that way too long. Unfortunately, most novice computer users will not relaize what is happening unitl it is far too late. Luckily, there is one sure means of detecting what is now known as the 'silent moment' virus. It always travels to new computers the same way in a text message with the subject line reading 'A MOMENT OF SILENCE'. Avoiding infection is easy once the file has been received simply by NOT READING IT! The act of the loading the file into the mail server’s ASCII buffer causes the 'MOMENT OF SILENCE' mainline program to initalize and execute. The program is higly 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 containing the following; \ [P] / o<<<<<>>>>> 'PRAY THE HOLY ROSARY' <<<<<>>>>> DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY!!! Do NOT READ IT !! Warn your friends and local system users of this newest threat to the ‘net

Again, if you receive this email delete it and DO NOT pass it on.

McAfee AVERT

McAfee AVERT

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Virus Profile: A Moment Of Silence Hoax

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