Virus alert

[a.k.a. Patrick]

Im unsure of the validity of this email I received from a friend today,b ut thought it was worth mentioning to the good folks here at Autopia........You should be alert during the next days:

Do not open any message with an attached filed called
"Invitation" regardless of who sent it .

It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which
"burns" the whole hard disc C of your computer. This
virus will be received from someone who has your
e-mail address in his/her contact list, that is why
you should send this e-mail to all your contacts. It
is better to receive this message 25 times than to
receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called "invitation", though sent
by a friend, do not open it and shut down your
computer immediately.

This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it has been
classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus
ever.

This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, 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 is kept.

SEND THIS E-MAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW, COPY THIS
E-MAIL AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS AND REMEMBER: IF
YOU SEND IT TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US.

[Tasty]

Well, just ran to Snopes to check this one out and as I suspected it is a hoax. I always take these things with a grain of salt as they are almost always bull. Who comes up with these things?

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/invitation.asp

[Mike-in-Orange]

I always appreciate community members looking out for one another, but usually this "alert" emails all sound like this, and they're usually hoaxes. I always do a quick search at the Symantec Antivirus Research Center website (www.sarc.com) and see what comes up. In this case, sure enough, it's a hoax.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...orch.hoax.html

The classic one was the email alerting people to a little file with, if I remember, a teddy bear icon. The email told you how to search for it, and how to delete it. Problem was, the file exists on all Windows based computers because it's a Windows file that is installed with the operating system! I know a large number of people who deleted the file. Good news is the file didn't really do much of anything terribly important and the computer would run just fine without it. Sort of like a digital appendix I guess!

[a.k.a. Patrick]

Well, it just gave me some additional resources to use! Thanks guys! Not a total waste at all!

[WSUcommuter]

Good looking out- your intentions were in the right direction!

I use Zone Alarm (free) for a fire wall, and a virus program called Avast! (free again!). The only time I ever got a virus was with Norton Antivirus 2002 running. It missed it completely

I also have Spybot Search and Destroy (free) for ridding tracking devices and spy ware. I've heard Ad-Aware contains (gasp!) SPYWARE included in the program!

Also, for windows users you would be amazed how much of an improvement your system can undergo if you reformat your hard drive and install windows clean once a year. It does take me a couple hours to update back everything and install all my programs, but I find it very worth while.

[a.k.a. Patrick]

I never did have any luck with Adaware either. I received less pop-ups without it!