Olympic Torch Virus

[AccyJay]

I've just received the following email:

Please read the attached warning issued today.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS:

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.

After doing a google search, i discovered that it is in fact a hoax. Just thought that i'd share this information with everybody.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Torch_(virus_hoax)

[fc:stanley]

KK Thankyou Jay i will look out for it and note my friends on this matter.

[AccyJay]

Ian should be able to shed a little more light on the subject.

[panther]

im with mcafee, you'd have thought they would have told us, thanks for that accyjay

[WillowTheWhisp]

McAfee won't inform you about it because it doesn't exist. The email itself is practically a do it yourself virus which is what AccyJay is trying to tell us. The hoax emails tell you to send a copy to everyone in your address book - so you do, and then they all send a copy to everyone in their address book, one of which is you so you get it again. But then you are also likely to know some of the same people so when Uncle Fred receives it from Aunty Ethel who received it from you (and sent it back to you) he also sends it on to you (and to Ethel) - so do several other people, and hey you might be in their addres book too so a bunch of the people Fred sent it to also send it to you, along with another bunch from other people Ethel sent it to etc, etc. Pretty soon everybody's email is getting jammed up with the wretched thing.

[entwisi]

And more importantly cart loads of internet bandwidth gets sucked up doing so which makes everybodies internet run slow.

Whislt it seems a 'decent' thing to do, 'informing' people of these hoaxes is in itself propagation which is the aim of all virii. He succeeded in his aim.

[WillowTheWhisp]

This image shows what can happen if you only send out two and return it to the guy who sent it to you. Now multiply that by the number of people in your address book! SCARY!

[lettie]

I reckon that the quickest way to send an actual virus is to e mail it as a warning to everyone in your address book and they will e mail it to theirs. For that reason, I never forward virus warnings, I delete them.